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THE 



MEDICAL ADVISER 

AXD 

GUIDE TO HEALTH, 

Designed to Illustrate the Author's 

NEW SYSTEM OF TEACTICE, 

IX THE CURE OF ALL SEXUAL DISEASES INCIDENT TO 
EXPOSURE, EARLY INDISCRETIONS, ETC 

By FREDERIC MORRILL, M. D., 



CONSULTING PHYSICIAN OF THE PEOPLE'S MEDICAL 
INSTITUTE, BOSTON, MASS. 



jl New and Herts ed 2?dition< 



10 



(L PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, 

WHO MAY BE CONSULTED DAILY AT HIS OFFICE, 
NO. 3 BULFINCH STREET, 

BOSTON, MASS. 
1870. 



^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
FREDERIC MORRILL, M. D., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District 
of Massachusetts. 



INTRODUCTION 

TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



The sale and circulation of nearly forty 
thousand copies of this little work, since its 
first publication in August last, a space of little 
less than eight months, has satisfied me that, 
notwithstanding its brevity and absence of detail, 
or attempt at anything like display in the exhibi- 
tion of medical lore, it struck a chord in the 
minds of that large class of sufferers to whom it 
was particularly addressed, who acknowledged 
its general truthfulness, and the increasing de- 
mand for it from every section of the country, 
has been the most grateful tribute I could have 
received, that my labors have been duly appre- 
ciated. In numberless instances I have received 
letters from almost every section of the country, 
expressing the thanks and gratitude of my read- 



4 DR. MORRILL S 

ers for the plainness and candor in which I had 
addressed them. In one, received but a few 
days since, the writer, evidently a gentleman of 
education and culture, says, " I have read your 
Medical Adviser and Guide to Health with 
care, and have become much interested in its 
contents. I think I can see my own case in it 
as if seen in a mirror." Such encomiums, com- 
ing from disinterested sources, are much more 
grateful to my feelings, than would be the flat- 
tering criticisms of the most learned. In the 
outset I did not undertake to compile a medical 
hand-book to serve as a vade mecum to the pro- 
fessional practitioner, nor did I choose to put 
into the hands of the numberless irregular doc- 
tors who swarm in our midst, a treatise to ena- 
ble them to obtain, in a cheap way, that knowl- 
edge which I only obtained by long, laborious 
and expensive study and experience. I intended 
my book to be, as it professes, an adviser 
merely, and if popular testimony be of any 
value in a matter of this kind, I think I may 
very safely congratulate myself upon the success 
of my endeavor. 

In preparing this second edition for the press, 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 5 

I have complied with a wish, very generally 
expressed by my friends and correspondents, 
that I would add somewhat to the usefulness 
and convenience of the book, as a work of ref- 
erence, in cases where I could not readily be 
/consulted, if I gave some more specific direc- 
tions as to treatment, in cases of emergency, 
with such simple formula, recipes, etc., for im- 
mediate application as might arrest the progress 
of disease until I might be communicated with 
in reference to it. In yielding to these solicita- 
tions I desire it to be distinctly understood that 
I have no intention of departing from my gen- 
eral line of professional conduct, nor the views 
I have expressed as to the impropriety of self- 
treatment in syphiletic complaints, — especially 
paraphrasing the legal aphorism that " he 
who (in law) argues his own case, has a fool for 
his client." I am still of the opinion that the 
man who doctors himself, has a fool for a patient, 
even though he be a doctor, and generally suc- 
cessful in his treatment of others. The many 
inquiries made of me through the extensive cor- 
respondence which has been opened up through 
the instrumentality of the Adviser, has suggest- 



6 dr. morrill's 

ed the idea that some few pages devoted to the 
investigation of complaints germaine to those 
chiefly discussed in the first edition, would be 
generally acceptable. The confidence kindly 
expressed by great numbers of my correspon- 
dents that I could convey much useful informa- 
tion and advice upon the diseases and complaints 
most prevalent in New England especially, 
hardly leaves me any alternative but to comply 
with their request. In doing this, I agree with 
them that I am, perhaps, whilst obliging them, 
merely performing a duty which, it is said, 
every man owes to his profession. 

This book, thus enlarged both in matter and 
in the sphere of its usefulness, will not lose any 
of its distinctive features of extreme simplicity, 
directness, and facility to be understood by in- 
telligent common sense people, amongst whom, 
I apprehend, it will chiefly circulate, and by 
whom I prefer it should be read and judged. 
My acceptance of the responsible position of 
Medical Director and consulting physician of 
the Peoples' Medical Institute, a new insti- 
tution, located at No. 3 Bulfinch Street, Boston, 
Mass., has opened to me a wide field for medical 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 7 

investigation and usefulness, which I shall en- 
deavor to improve to the best of my ability. 

Hitherto, in my extensive private practice, for 
reasons which can be readily understood, I 
have committed as little to writing as possible ; 
my numerous engagements precluding any ap- 
propriation of time to that purpose. But now, 
with the liberal allowance made to me by the 
Directors of the Institute, I shall be enabled to 
avail myself of any assistance I may require, 
not only in keeping an exact record of cases, 
and the variations in treatment which every 
phase of disease may require, but materially aid 
me in furthering the objects of the institution, 
and simplifying, so far as is practicable, the 
hitherto complicated practice and treatment of 
diseases which so long have been the sport, and 
constituted the chief income of scores of medi- 
cal leeches who have lived only by drawing, as 
it were, their life-blood from the unwary and 
unfortunate. 

In offering this second edition, I do not 
claim for it either completion or perfection; 
but it is all I consider necessary to be placed in 
the hands of those for whom it is designed. 



8 dr. morrill's 

Very few care about reading a dry, exclusively 
medical treatise, however sound and correct it 
may be ; such books are proper only for the 
medical student and practitioner ; but a book 
which mirrors forth to each reader facts and 
symptoms, the truthfulness of which they recog- 
nize, as coming within their own personal ex- 
perience, is always sought for and read with 
avidity. Whilst I adhere to the opinion which 
formerly induced me to publish, in separate 
and distinct treatises, my Gentleman's Medi- 
cal Adviser, and The Ladies' Guide to 
Health, I am only complying with the wishes 
of many of my friends, by including, in this new 
and revised edition, some general observations 
and directions in regard to the pathology and 
treatment of not only diseases kindred to, and 
similar to those particularly alluded to in the 
preceding pages, but such other diseases to 
which females are peculiarly liable, and for the 
proper treatment of which they ever find it 
most advantageous to apply to some physician 
well known as having made the subject of 
female complaints one of especial study and 
investigation. I may, I think, without vanity, 



MEDICAL ADVISER. \) 

assert that, in this specialty, my varied and 
extensive experience entitles me to a considera- 
tion beyond that usually extended to a large 
majority of my professional brethren; as during 
an uninterrupted practice of over thirty years, by 
far the greater number of my patients have been 
females, suffering under some one or more of 
the various forms of what are commonly termed 
sexual or delicate diseases, or else difficulties 
resulting from some organic or functional de- 
rangement, about which the general run of the 
" faculty" are as innocent of any practical 
knowledge as the child unborn. I am free to 
confess that the skill which I am supposed to 
possess, and the great success I have met with 
in this department of my profession, has been 
attained fully as much, and probably more, 
from my habits of close observation, compari- 
son, and analysis, for the employment of which 
I had ample scope in my large practice, than 
from the perusal of books and authorities, no 
matter by whom written or compiled. But, 
whilst devoting myself to the study of disease 
as displayed in the great book of Nature and 
the living subject, I have by no mer.ns neglected 



10 dr. morrill's 

the pages of standard authors, nor the lighter, 
but no less valuable, emanations of the periodi- 
cal press. It has ever been my pride to keep 
" posted" in everything which is going on in 
all the departments of medical learning and 
science in every part of the world; and, although 
I never fail to investigate each newly heralded 
discovery or improvement, I very seldom find 
anything to add to the knowledge I had not 
already attained by my own experience, nor to 
induce me very essentially to depart from my 
system of treatment which has so long availed 
me in my extensive practice. The attentive 
reader of either sex must have noticed that I do 
not spread before him or her pages of technical 
lore, tedious and wearisome even to the most 
devoted book-worm, nor a rehash of other men's 
brains, filched from some foreign or antiquated 
book now out of print, and seldom found, thus 
rendering the plagiarism less likely to be de- 
tected. My book, such as it is, is my own ; and 
I am not ashamed to acknowledge its paternity. 
It has been written from beginning to end with- 
out reference to any similar work in existence ; 
and I defy the world to point out a stolen sen- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 11 

tence in it. If it contains ought of truth and 
consistency, if it embodies any knowledge of 
facts or science worth the remembering, or use- 
ful to the invalid and sufferer, the composition 
is mine, and my own brain has alone guided 
and directed me in my labors. Pseudo profess- 
ors may pretend to criticise, and even go so far 
as to attempt to sneer down, in their quack 
advertisements, a production, the effects of 
which they too sensibly feel in their declining 
practice and mushroom popularity : but after 

all, THE TRUTH WILL PREVAIL. 

I have long been satisfied that a vast amount 
of unnecessary pain and suffering is constantly 
being inflicted, and borne, — too patiently borne, 
I think, — by the mothers, wives, and daughters 
of New England, from their quiet submission to 
the old, threadbare, and everywhere else dis- 
carded notions regarding the treatment of 
themselves when in peculiar circumstances of 
sickness and debility; by the antiquated and 
effete systems usually pursued by the ordinary 
country practitioner. Not that these men are 
not, in their way and limited sphere, as good as 
ought to be expected, but they have neither 



12 DR. 

the inducements nor the opportunities to famil- 
iarize themselves with either the new develop- 
ments of disease, or modes of treatment neces- 
sary to its successful management, which a 
large city is constantly offering to the physician 
of extensive practice. In the city, where com- 
petition is sharp, professional rivalry compels 
the aspirant after success to perfect himself by 
every means within his reach, in every art 
which has the least bearing toward success. 
He reads, he studies, he examines and compares, 
until every avenue is explored, and goes to his 
work neither groping nor doubtful of his course, 
but with that boldness and confidence which a 
self-conscious ability always confers upon its 
possessor. 

Yv r ith these preliminary observations, I sub- 
mit this new and revised edition, somewhat 
changed as to its title, so as to render it con- 
formable to the wider range of topics treated 
upon, to the candid examination and criticism 
of a discerning public. Unlike any other book 
of the kind it will be found to contain nothing 
which should exclude it from the family centre- 
table, the school room, or the maiden's collec- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 13 

tion of choice reading. There is not a word or 
sentence in it which should preclude its open 
perusal at any time, in any place, or in any com- 
pany, and all, from the boy and girl, to the father 
and matron, may study its pages with the cer- 
tainty that, by doing so they will be adding to 
their stock of useful knowledge, which at some 
period of their lives will be found of essential, 
perhaps of vital service to them. 

F. MORRILL, M. D. 
No. 3 Bulfinch Street, Boston, Mass, 






THE PEOPLE'S MEDICAL INSTITUTE, 

LOCATED AT 

No. 3 Bulfinch Street, 
BOSTON, MASS., 

FREDERIC MORRILL, M. D. 
Chief Medical Director and Consulting Physician. 



LADIES OR GENTLEMEN 

SUFFERING under any form of bodily dis- 
ease, will find this establishment amply 
provided with every modern and scientific dis- 
covery and improvement in the treatment of all 
sexual complaints, which enables it to guarantee 
to the afflicted more safe, speedy and certain 
cures than any other similar establishment in 
the world. Its charges are moderate, and its 
intercourse with patients strictly confidential. 
All communications should be plainly addressed 
to 

E. MORRILL, M. D., 

No. 3 Bulfinch Street, 
Boston, Mass. 
(14) 



THE 

MEDICAL ADVISEE 

PART FIRST. 



CHAPTER I. 

MANY years ago, when I first entered upon 
my professional career, in the city of Bos- 
ton, as a new and comparatively unknown can- 
didate for distinction and success, I found time to 
compile several medical treatises bearing upon a 
certain class of diseases always greatly prevalent 
in our large cities. These works, the fruits of 
careful study and investigation, contrary to any 
expectations which I had dared to form, became 
at once exceedingly popular, and edition after 
edition was rapidly exhausted. Whilst they 
served in part to give publicity to my name, as 
one particularly devoted to the treatment of dis- 
eases arising from imprudence and exposure, and 
all other complaints of the genital organs, the 



16 



extensive range of study and examination of au- 
thorities and cases necessary to prepare me to 
discuss the subject properly and intelligibly, 
almost unconsciously to myself, created that in- 
terest in my mind as to induce me to select that 
branch of medical science as a specialty, and to 
make it the leading object of my future investi- 
gations. Finding myself thus theoretically and 
practically prepared to combat these dread ene- 
mies of man's pleasure and comforts as well, per- 
haps, as any one of my age, I determined to break 
away from those restraints which a false notion of 
dignified professional propriety had imposed, and 
at the risk of ostracism from the brotherhood, and 
to be classed with those who are considered as 
interlopers, I resolved to advertise my abilities 
and to make myself useful in a sphere wherein I 
felt satisfied that I could successfully compete 
with any of my brethren. The consequence has 
been that, instead of a limited and precarious 
practice, extending only to a few personal friends, 
I have, each succeeding year, seen added to my 
list of patients persons from every section of the 
country, as well as from the adjoining British 
Provinces and foreign lands. Completely ab- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 17 

sorbed in the cares and duties imposed upon me 
by this increase of patronage, I have not been 
able to revise and republish those works to 
which, I believe, I am in a great degree, indebt- 
ed for my early success in obtaining so large 
and remunerative a practice as I now enjoy. 

These thirty years of close application to my 
profession have yielded an experience which, 
added to theoretical attainments, acquired when 
professional calls did not press so heavily upon 
me, have, I believe, fully qualified me now to 
yield to the repeated solicitations of my friends 
and patrons, to prepare, for their use, a manual 
which shall serve them as a guide in those cases 
of accident and exposure to which all are liable, 
whatever may have been their training and cul- 
ture, or however strong their sense of moral 
and religious obligations, to avoid temptation 
and excess, in whatever shape it may assail 
them. 

Amidst all of the vast catalogue of diseases 
which afflict the human race, there are none 
which reach so many, and sting so sharply, as 
those denominated " sexual." From the strip- 
ling, hardly arrived at the age of puberty, up to 



18 dr. morrill's 

the hoary-headed patriarch of three score years 
and ten, we find that none are exempt. Even 
the infant, before it has been expelled from the 
body of its mother, is too frequently tainted, its 
blood corrupted, and its fair form mutilated by 
a disease communicated to it by its erring parents. 
Did this great social evil limit its effects merely 
to a temporary disability of its immediate vic- 
tims, and were it apparent only in the hospitals 
and doctor's apartments, where it seeks to 
assuage its pains, and find a cure for the evils 
arising from it, though severe and often revolt- 
ing, its consequences would be slight in compari- 
son with what they really are. Were such dis- 
eases merely local in their character, the actual 
cautery, and the dissecting knife, might be relied 
upon for their extirpation ; but, unhappily, this 
is not so. When once the infection has gained 
a foothold upon the human system, it is not 
merely those parts most immediately exposed and 
affected, but, like a fiery devil, it pervades every 
part of the bodily organization. It seizes upon 
the blood, the very life of man, and along its 
currents it carries the infection through every 
vein and tissue ; and coursing its way through 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 19 

the spinal column it seizes upon the citadel of 
man's power, the brain, and if unchecked and 
unsubdued, paralyzes and enfeebles the organs 
of thought as well as action. When the evidences 
of such destruction are daily presented to our 
view, can the physician overestimate the impor- 
tance of the mission to which he is called, and 
can he, if possessed of a spark of manly feeling, 
shrink, through a false estimate of professional 
pride, to give to such cases the very best efforts 
of his professional skill ? Human health and life 
are equally dear to all. The wealthy merchant, 
the venerable clergyman, — the centre and delight 
of a highly cultivated and fashionable congrega- 
tion, — the millionaire, reclining at his ease 
in his sumptuous " stone front," may, and 
do, from their position and power of their wealth, 
command the attendance and exercise of the best 
skill the country can produce ; and the petted 
favorite of such exalted patronage is looked up 
to as particularly fortunate, and eminence is 
awarded to him, simply because Croesus and 
Dives head the list of his patrons. The equally, 
and frequently more skilful physician, who, with 
a strong and manly heart, and firm hand, nerves 



20 dr. morrill's 

himself to a daily and hourly contest with dis- 
ease, the result of libidinous desires and unholy 
passions, is looked upon too frequently with 
scorn, and treated as an empiric because he ad- 
vertises to the world his ability and willingness 
to treat those cases which his more delicate and 
sensitive brethren regard with contempt. For 
myself, I am ready to alleviate human misery 
and distress wherever it may be found, and in 
whatever form it may present itself. I have seen 
as much sincere goodness, as much downright 
honesty, elevated and high-toned principle and 
friendship in the unhappy victims of venereal 
and syphilitic diseases, as in any people I have 
had to deal with. 

For the rescue of the miserable victims of in- 
temperance laws are enacted, which have en- 
grossed the time and attention of legislators, ses- 
sion after session ; bodies of executive officers, 
costly to be maintained, are organized and set 
in motion ; retreats and asylums are established, 
and whole communities and states are convul- 
sed, from center to circumference, with the ex- 
citing questions of prohibition or non-prohibi- 
tion, license or no license, and the advocates of 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 21 

temperance are canonized as the apostles of all 
good. Yet a social evil of far greater magni- 
tude than any caused by mere intemperance in 
the use of alcoholic and stimulating drinks, stalks 
abroad in our midst at noon-day, at eventide, 
and in the still watches of the night, selecting 
its victims from the young, the beautiful, and the 
lovely. The heart of society is cankered to its 
core, and he who devotes himself to assuage, 
eradicate, and stay this great evil, is denounced 
as a quack, or perhaps shunned as an ignorant 
pretender. For one I am willing to bear the im- 
putation, so long as I know that I am benefitting 
my fellow men. Thirty years of professional in- 
tercourse and dealing with this unfortunate 
class of patients, have taught me lessons which 
neither books nor the more learned of my fel- 
low men could furnish ; and the best tribute of 
thanks which I can render them now, is that 
whilst in the full meridian of life, with faculties 
ripened and matured, and in the enjoyment of a 
full and lucrative business, I devote the leisure 
hours that may be afforded me, in furnishing to 
them and all others who may be interested in 
the subject, such advice, counsels, and direc- 



22 dr. morrill's 

tions, as will enable them to avoid those danger- 
ous strands and breakers upon which so many 
have suffered shipwreck. 

By this I do not wish to have it understood 
that I design to furnish such a book as will 
enable any one to " doctor himself." Very far 
from it. Of all the mischiefs resulting from any 
of the diseases incident to early imprudence, 
excessive indulgence, or unclean sexual inter- 
course, not the least are those consequent upon 
the application of supposed remedies unadvised 
by a competent physician. There can hardly 
occur any degree of infection, however slight, 
but at once demands the inspection and the 
treatment of one able at a glance, to see the 
extent of the danger, and restrain its further 
ravages. Men are crippled, their features and 
limbs distorted for life, simply because of some 
self- application of corrosive and dangerous min- 
eral preparations by those who have become in- 
fected ; and who, in the first moments of alarm, 
have, with the view to the concealment of their 
condition, resorted to these poisonous and deadly 
drugs for relief. Cases which, even if let alone 
to pursue the work of destruction unmolested, 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 28 

could not have assumed more dangerous or dis- 
gusting forms, have, by a dangerous and unwise 
meddling with, been driven into the system, dis- 
tributing the virus to every vital part, until, 
from what was at first a mild attack in its sim- 
plest form, the victim is now enveloped in a 
flame from which he can be rescued only by the 
boldest and most courageous efforts. 

Neither is it my intention to pander to a pru- 
rient and debased curiosity and appetite, which 
seeks gratification in the perusal of books de- 
voted to subjects ordinarily supposed to come 
within the range of the physician's or midwife's 
care and attention exclusively. My design will 
be simply to point out the various disorders and 
complaints incident to youth and manhood, 
through an abuse, over-indulgence, or unguarded 
indulgence of the generative organs. To do this 
I do not deem it at all necessary that I shall enter 
into all the minutiae of their anatomical struc- 
ture, nor into a pathological description and 
inquiry as to the origin and character of the 
diseases themselves. I am not writing for 
doctors nor learned professors of physiological 
and pathological science, but for those who, un- 



24 dr. morrill's 

learned and unskilled in all these matters, are, 
after once being satisfied that help is requisite in 
their cases, to be restored 'to health, if at all, 
by the counsels and guidance of another, and 
that, the physician of their choice. 

Setting aside for the present all allusions to 
hereditary taint and disease, and addressing my- 
self only to those presumed to have received 
from their parents at least an ordinarily healthy 
and strong constitution, I believe I do not err 
in the opinion that, not one in fifty have escaped 
the influence of evil example, or, through such 
faultless physical training as not to have fre- 
quently indulged in, if not become addicted to, 
the habit of masturbation. I make use of this 
term because I believe it to be generally under- 
stood by the most artless and inexperienced. 
The artificial forms of living, the universal use 
of stimulating food and drinks, the intimate and 
unguarded association of the sexes in all the va- 
rious forms of social and fashionable life, have 
been, and are such as to lead to a premature de- 
velopment of the virile passions and desires 
which, implanted in our natures for the sole pur- 
poses of procreation and the perpetuation of the 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 25 

human species, have, under this unnatural and 
premature stimulus, suggested the artificial 
and ready means of relief in self-pollution and 
abuse. Whilst the boy has been tenderly and 
carefully trained in everything else necessary 
to the full and useful development of all his 
faculties, J)y a fatal mistake, arising through 
ignorance on the part of parents and guardians, 
this great evil has been ignored, and left to pur- 
sue its deadly ravages unchecked. Physiology 
and the laws of life, the very uses of the organs 
of procreation, other than for purposes of bodily 
evacuation, have been studiously concealed from 
our youth, and they have been left to acquire 
from associates and evil example a knowledge 
of vices and habits which, before they are aware 
of it, and long ere their natural guardians have 
any suspicions of it, have laid the foundation of 
a train of evils and diseases which, if unchecked, 
will inevitably lead to early decay and death. 
How many of these victims have I known 
whose broken down constitutions, indicated by 
the faltering gait, the vacant stare, and almost 
idiotic countenance, are pointed out as objects 
of commiseration because of a supposed too 



2G dr. morrill's 

close application to study and an overtasked 
brain, and the cause of their failure in life 
attributed to anything but the true one. I do 
not now remember that out of the thousands of 
cases in which I have been consulted, and where 
this vice has been the chief, and perhaps the 
only cause of disease and trouble, but it has 
turned out in the course of my examination 
that this habit has been indulged in innocently, 
and from an entire ignorance of its deadly and 
fearful consequences. " Had I have known, 
had I have been forewarned, what a world of 
misery and wretchedness I should have es- 
caped," has been the invariable exclamation of 
those from whom I have "wormed out," as it 
were, the secret history of their past habits and 
indulgences. My reader, let me put the ques- 
tion to you. It is not necessary that I should 
put you under a rigid examination and extort 
from you, by an artful system of professional in- 
quiry, whether you are faultless in this respect. 
It is not necessary that I should inquire of you 
whether the weakness in the back, the pains in 
side and breast, the troubled sleep, the lascivi- 
ous dreams, the fading and disordered vision, and 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 27 

the wavering mind, the disinclination to society 
and gradual failure of all manly power of which 
you complain, are attributable to this vice or 
not ! You know. Memory and reason have 
not yet become unseated, and the past is open 
before you ; and you may trace, as in an open 
book, the records of those early indulgences and 
youthful indiscretions which have, step by step, 
conducted you to the precipice upon which you 
now stand. It is to you these pages are ad- 
dressed. You have long felt that you were on 
untenable ground, and that everything before 
you was dark and dreary as the grave to which 
you looked forward as a last and almost wel- 
come refuge from the pains and miseries of life. 
Were the consequences limited only to yourself, 
the pangs of remorse, as well as the pains 
arising from your numerous ills, might be 
patiently, even if hopelessly borne ; but if, as is 
most likely to be the case, there is another in- 
terested in your happiness, or what is equally 
as unfortunate, whose happiness is dependent 
upon your fulfilment of plighted vows for recip- 
rocated affection, how wretched is your lot. By 
your own hands you have placed a barrier be- 



28 



tween yourself and the accomplishment of your 
brightest earthly hopes. You know yourself 
unequal to the performance of all the duties of 
manhood in the interesting relation to which 
you have pledged yourself, and you shrink hack 
appalled at the very idea of exposing your im- 
potency and lack of ability honorably to com- 
plete the engagement you have contracted. 
Evasion, despair, dishonor, suicide and death are 
by turns contemplated, until, in the horrible con- 
flict, the body becomes a weary burden, and 
reason no longer guides you by its dictates. 
You struggle on like the blind man in the 
morass, and your every effort at escape only 
sinks you deeper and deeper into the slough in 
which you are engulfed. Young man, this is 
no fancy sketch. It is the secret history of 
thousands and tens of thousands, and among 
whom you are perhaps numbered. If this is so, 
then it is time, and more than time, that you 
availed yourself of the helps which medical 
science holds out to rescue you from the im- 
pending destruction of your mental and physical 
faculties, and restore you to yourself, to your 
friends, and to society, a renovated, sound, and 
saved human being. 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 29 

I think it not needful for me to go through all 
the details of the steps through which you were 
gradually initiated into all the mysteries of un- 
lawful pleasures, nor the symptoms of those dis- 
eases which too surely are the ever-ready attend- 
ants upon their votaries. I would not entirely 
suppress the ardors of youth by ascetic rules nor 
monastic vows. I understand human nature, 
and take it as I find it, and hence I have a large 
charity for those who, impelled by irresistible 
desire and strong temptation, are led into dan- 
ger. But I do most earnestly wish to benefit 
them, nevertheless. 

My desire to make myself thoroughly under- 
stood, and not commit myself to the charge of 
indelicacy, and the use of language which might 
exclude this treatise from unconcealed and open 
perusal, renders it somewhat difficult for me to 
express myself upon all those interesting topics 
embraced within the scope of the investigations 
upon which we are now engaged. I have called 
your attention to the great vice of solitary in- 
dulgence, and have incidentally referred to it as 
resulting in creating impediments to marriage, 
dangerous to health, and difficult to be sur- 



30 



mounted. I must go further, and instruct you 
that, however great and serious these obstacles 
are, that if they are properly attacked before 
they culminate in entire impotency and imbe- 
cility, there are remedies lately discovered by 
myself which, in connection with proper diet 
and regimen, the powers of the body thus pre- 
maturely weakened and dormant, may be re- 
stored to their former activity and strength ; and 
that, too, without resorting to any of those offen- 
sive mechanical means and appliances which 
formerly were so much relied upon. Neither 
am I an advocate of constant drugging, and the 
administration of stimulating cordials, to effect 
this object. I had tried all the usual and well- 
known remedies hitherto regarded as infallible 
and specific in their re-invigoration of prema- 
turely exhausted manhood, and was pained to 
find that with them, as with almost all tonics 
and stimulating preparations which have a 
direct tendency to, and action upon those parts 
supposed the most to need their immediate ap- 
plication and restoring qualities, the reaction 
was too violent, and that their repeated use 
gradually undermined the very foundation of 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 31 

power, until finally there was nothing left to an- 
imate and excite. During many years of my 
practice I had this difficulty to contend with. 
The medicinal virtues of every vegetable sub- 
stance, embracing roots, barks, flowers, and 
berries, were carefully investigated and ascer- 
tained, and whilst they yielded many most valu- 
able additions to my stock of remedies, and to 
our national pharmacopoea, none of them came 
up to my wishes in imparting, without the sub- 
sequent reaction, those restoring and strength- 
ening powers so desirable to be secured, and 
without which no amount of care, careful nurs- 
ing, diet, with all the adjuncts of well-timed and 
regulated hours for sleep, exercise, and recrea- 
tion, seemed to be available. Xot content with 
ransacking the whole botanical kingdom of this 
country, I expended thousands of dollars in 
pushing my investigations to other and more 
distant climes, until at length my persistence 
and perseverence were rewarded in the discovery 
of what I had so long sought, — a purely vegeta- 
ble preparation of surpassing curative and tonic 
properties, as healthful, soothing, and beneficial 
in its operations upon the mind and nervous 



32 dr. morrill's 

system as it is almost magically efficacious in its 
healing powers when administered as a remedy 
in the cases to which I have just alluded. 
Alone, or its judicious mixture with other well- 
known remedies, enabling it to produce its 
effects, just in proportion to the nature and te- 
nacity of the disease, has satisfied me that, in it 
the great desideratum in accomplishing a per- 
fect cure of almost ali the infirmities arising 
from the indulgence of solitary vice, as well as 
all nervous, sexual, and cutaneous diseases, has 
been at last discovered. For many years, at 
great expense, I have laid in my supplies of this 
invaluable product of nature; and although I 
have resorted to its use, in thousands of cases 
where the genito-urinal organs were affected, or 
where, through them, other parts of the system, 
or the general health of the body has suffered, 
I have rarely failed to find it accomplish all, and 
even more, than I had hoped for; and here let 
me remark, that in a general way I am no ad- 
vocate for, nor do I countenance the use of, 
strange and unfamiliar remedies. Neither do I 
deal in or use such. But the fruits of my own 
researches and discoveries in the botanical king- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 33 

dom, which is alike free to all, I must be allowed 
to enjoy. If I have, prompted by a greater 
zeal, and animated by a stronger desire for suc- 
cess and professional distinction, and by the ex- 
penditure of much valuable time, and large sums 
of money, secured a valuable adjunct in the 
cure of disease, I feel no compunctions what- 
ever in retaining in my own hands, during my 
lifetime, the exclusive use and emoluments 
arising from my discovery. Certain I am, that 
no human being, besides myself, possesses my 
secret. The various forms and proportions in 
which I have administered this invaluable rem- 
edy, and the astonishing, as well as gratifying 
results produced by it, have led me to still 
farther prosecute my experiments with it in 
almost every stage and grade of seminal and 
sexual disease, where the propriety of tonic and 
invigorating remedies are called for ; and having 
used it now for many years, in both sexes, of 
almost every age, am prepared to say that it is 
far superior to any other remedy of which I 
have any knowledge. . That most distressing 
form of seminal debility, which results from an 
involuntary and frequent discharge from the 



34 DR. MORRILL'S 

urinary organs, is checked by it as if by the 
hand of Omnipotence itself, whilst the cheerful 
and exhilerating effects which it produces in all 
the functions of life, especially upon the brain, 
equalizing and moderating all the passions, and 
allaying all the causes of undue excitement, 
that those parts and organs, hitherto enfeebled 
through excess and disease, have time to re- 
cuperate, and are enabled to resume their 
natural functions. Although I can well say, 
with a distinguished writer upon these topics, 
that I have found no royal plan of accomplish- 
ing a speedy, or certain removal in all cases of 
the maladies under consideration, without the 
exercise of great patience and care, and that no 
man who possesses true medical and surgical 
skill will confine himself exclusively to a few 
medicinal substances that may have acquired 
notoriety as specifics, yet I can truly say that in 
a more extended practice than has been vouch- 
safed to the generality of the profession, since 
my discovery of the remedy alluded to, I have 
met with greater success, and fewer defeats in 
subduing this form of disease, than I had before. 
Its great recommendation is, that, under no 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 35 

possible circumstances can it do any harm, and, 
unlike the common and standard medicines, 
almost always given and regarded as specifics, 
especially by those charlatans who infest every 
large city, it does not, and cannot, of itself, 
create inflammation and apparent disease, to 
enable an unscrupulous medical attendant to 
excite the fears, and frighten the patient into a 
protracted course of treatment, having for its 
object only the creation of a heavy bill to the 
pecuniary benefit of the practitioner. 

Patients, however, must not be led into the 
error that diseases of this kind are to be subdued 
instanter. In a large majority of cases the 
physician is not called upon until the patient, 
especially if a novice in these matters, has not 
taken some time to speculate upon the nature of 
the complaint that is upon him ; and is often re- 
strained by feelings of shame and mortification 
from making his condition known, or has tried 
his own skill, or some favorite remedy suggested 
by a friendly companion, in expectation that he 
will be spared the infliction as well as the ex- 
pense of a professional consultation in regard to 
it ; or, if he has resolved upon the latter course, 



36 BR. MORRILl/S 

precious time is lost in solving his doubts as to 
whom it will be most advantageous to apply. The 
ordinary family physician, whose countenance 
and ways are as familiar to him as one of his 
" own folks," is not for a moment to be thought 
of. His first promptings will be to call upon 
some one whose exalted standing and reputa- 
tion as a physician, and position in society as 
a high-minded and honorable man, would be 
all- sufficient, not only to ensure proper medical 
treatment, but in whose keeping, his character 
and reputation would be safe from exposure; 
for, it is a painful truth, that the suspicion of 
being the victim of secret disease is too often the 
cause of exclusion from society, and the coolness 
and neglect of former friends. The whole pro- 
ceeding is the result, not only of inexperience, 
but is imprudent and unwise from beginning to 
end. In no other affair of importance do we 
act with so little discretion, and are so little 
guided by the prudential maxims of every day 
life. Ordinarily we would not apply to a learned 
and philosophic professor of speculative science, 
however wide his fame, to repair our chronom- 
eter, or to polish a diamond, simply, because he 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 37 

is not supposed to possess the mechanical skill 
and ingenuity necessary to the performance of 
such a piece of work. We seek out our ship- 
wright, or carpenter, tailor and other mechan- 
ics, each according to their several trades, be- 
cause as such they are known to be skilful and 
reliable. Such should also be our course in 
regard to our physician; and in the medical 
and surgical treatment of those terrible and life- 
destroying diseases of which we are now speak- 
ing,' we should only resort to those who have 
gained their knowledge of all the peculiarities 
of these dread diseases by long" and careful study 
and an exclusive attention to them, -enabling 
them from experience, rather than books, to 
conquer the destroyer, in all the varied forms it 
is accustomed to present itself. 

During the thirty years of my practice in this 
city the records of my business will show a list 
of nearly one hundred thousand patients, com- 
prising those affected with every stage and 
degree of private and sexual disease, and cer- 
tainly not one of the many who are styled ad- 
vertising doctors can boast of such voluminous 
epistolary correspondence as I have been obliged 



38 dr. morrill's 

to keep Tip in connection with this extensive 
business. Although, as a general rule, I destroy 
all communications, where it is evident that 
the writer is particularly anxious for conceal- 
ment, yet in many cases of especial interest, 
where the letters only embrace matters con- 
nected with the case and cure, I have preserved 
them as grateful recollections of the benefits I 
have conferred upon my fellow man, and as 
honorable trophies of my success. Were not 
the fashion a hackneyed one, and open to the 
charge of fabrication for mere effect, I should 
reproduce here more of this correspondence, to 
confirm .what I have said in regard to the happy 
and astonishing cures performed by me, chiefly 
through those remedies known only to myself, 
and discovered by me through years of sleepless 
toil, self-denial, investigation, and unsparing 
pecuniary outlay. But I forbear, well knowing 
how liable such displays are to be misunder- 
stood, and their truthfulness misrepresented by 
the envious and unsuccessful. I shall freely 
avail myself of this opportunity, however, before 
I conclude these pages, to reproduce some of 
the testimonials of the press, which at various 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 



places, and at different times, has liberally and 
generously commented upon the uniform great 
success which has attended my practice. 



CHAPTER II. 



THUS far I have limited my appeal chiefly to 
the young, and have referred only to the 
milder forms of secret disease, which, although 
less fatal in their immediate effects, if promptly 
and properly attended to, yet do, if neglected, 
mismanaged, or tampered with, lead to most 
distressing and often fatal consequences. I 
shall now proceed a degree further, and ap- 
proaching the full-grown man, speak of the more 
terrific forms of this destroyer, such as it pre- 
sents itself in all its power of evil and destruc- 
tive might. If happily the youth has escaped, 
" as by fire," and in the consciousness of renew- 
ed powers and a purified body, has arrived at 
manhood, and assumed the cares and responsi- 
bilities of a husband and a father, he is still lia- 
ble to the same temptations ; and whatever may 
be said of the folly or guilt to be attached to his 



40 DR. MORRILL'S 

conduct, is again the victim of unclean and dis- 
eased sexual association. This time, however, 
it comes upon him, not in the simple form of a 
suspicious excretion of a viscid matter, staining 
his apparel, and tormenting him in the perform- 
ance of one of nature's offices, but has seized 
upon him in some one of those formidable forms 
which, if unrestrained, even at the moment of 
attack, is most certain to eat its way to and 
through every part and organ of the machinery 
of life, until its hapless victim is laid out a poor 
deformed and crippled wreck of humanity, a 
loathing to himself, and a burden, and perhaps 
scorn to all with whom he is connected. When 
the individual finds himself in this condition, 
the instinct of self-preservation at once prompts 
him to fly to the first suggested means of relief; 
and every country practitioner has ready at 
hand a mercurial preparation of some kind, 
found in the books ever since the art of printing 
was invented, and the science of medicine and 
surgery came out of the hands of barbers and 
apothecaries, and assumed the character of a 
separate and independent profession. It is use- 
less to. say that, in ninety-nine cases out of the 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 41 

hundred, these old stereotyped prescriptions and 
remedies which, fifty years ago would occasion- 
ally effect a cure, are now, owing to the constant 
change which has been going on in the nature 
of these diseases, as inert and ineffectual to pro- 
duce a cure as simple as water itself; and any 
one may now daily witness in the mutilated 
figures of many a passer along the thronged 
thoroughfares of our large cities, the horrid 
effects of mercurial preparations which have 
only succeeded in overpowering one disease by 
the substitution of another, none the less fearful, 
and equally as destructive as the first. As I 
am not writing a pathological guide for the use 
of the medical practitioner, it is not my design, 
as before intimated, to confuse and embarrass 
the general reader by a methodical classification 
of symptoms and diseases. This is too often 
attempted by those who, by the use of technical 
and scientific terms, seek only to display their 
own attainments, and to lead others to think 
that they are wondrous wise. My effort will 
be to make myself understood in plain, simple 
language, so that the afflicted may readily com- 
prehend the true nature of his situation, the evils 



42 dr. morrill's 

with which he is threatened, and the proper 
course to pursue in the painful emergency in 
which he is placed. In the progress of this hor- 
rible disease, to which I am now calling your 
attention, no part of the human system escapes 
contamination, nor fails to sympathize with the 
local parts more immediately attacked. The 
virus is almost immediately transferred by the 
touch, by the irrepressible propensity felt to 
handle and examine the diseased parts, to almost 
every other portion of the body susceptible of 
contagion or innoculation, until the lips, nose, 
throat, eyes, and every opening and cavity of 
the body is contaminated by the deadly virus, 
whilst within, it is being circulated by the vital 
current, the blood, into all parts of the system. 
At this stage of the disease, no palliating nor 
half-way measures can stop its ravages. * Self- 
treatment, guided and directed as it may be, by 
a consultation of the whole list of medical author- 
ities, is utterly powerless. The caprices and 
changes characteristic of the complaint, are such 
that, only the experienced practitioner can de- 
tect its true character, and direct with certainty 
the artillery necessary to its overthrow. There 






MEDICAL ADVISER. 43 

is hardly a day passes but I am consulted by 
more or less of those who, neglecting the first 
approaches of this insidious destroyer, are so far 
enveloped in its embraces as to them it appears 
almost impossible to be cured. But when I 
have exhibited to them the incontestible eviden- 
ces of the cures performed by me, of cases in 
many instances as severe as their own, they have 
manifested a joy which no pen can describe. 
Certainly it would have been better for them, as 
it would be more agreeable to me, had I have 
been consulted at an earlier period ; but, never- 
theless, whatever may have been the cause of 
neglect or delay, I am positive that the disease 
cannot long resist the almost immediate, power- 
ful, and searching operation of the remedies 
which I apply. So far from resorting to those 
painful and severe caustic applications hitherto 
so common, and usually regarded as indispensa- 
ble, I proceed by mild, emolient, and soothing 
preparations for external treatment, which, 
aided by an internal administration of my great 
remedy, prepared in just the proper proportion, 
in connection with other healing and balsamic 
productions of the vegetable kingdom, all in- 



44 dr. morrill's 

flammatory action is at once quietly subdued. 
The tonic properties of the medicine is at once 
imparted to the system, the digestive organs 
become cleansed and regulated, and perform all 
their functions like a charm ; and the curative 
and healing process goes on quite rapidly, and 
in exact accordance with nature's laws. By a 
strict adherence to the conditions necessary to 
be observed in the process of treatment, it is 
absolutely impossible that any failure or disap- 
pointment should occur ; and what is most sin- 
gular, where once this rare preparation has 
taken an effectual hold upon the system, not 
only does it drive off the loathsome disease, but 
it fortifies and strengthens the parts hitherto 
affected and enfeebled, so that in a wonderfully 
short space of time they are restored to their 
pristine vigor, and no traces remain of the 
malady which so recently threatened so much 
devastation and ruin. Of all ages and classes of 
men upon whom the ravages of the sexual dis- 
eases are to be feared, there are none to whom 
it is so dangerous as to those in the meridian of 
life. This is doubly the case when the individ- 
ual is at the head of a family. Not limited to 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 45 

himself, his wife, the lawful partner of his hosom 
and the mother of his children, is in danger of 
infection. Their natural protector and guardian, 
he finds himself the bearer in his own body of a 
virus more to be dreaded than that of the deadly- 
upas. His social and domestic enjoyments are 
broken in upon by this foul fiend, and if he once 
yields to the solicitations of love, and in an un- 
guarded moment gives way to its gratification, 
the envenomed shaft has reached another victim, 
and beings yet unborn are not only possibly, but 
probably, made to share in his infection. There 
is nothing more certain than that this disease is 
thus propagated from sire to son, through many 
generations, and that scrofula, in almost all the 
hideous forms in which it developes itself, such 
as tubercular consumption, weak, sore and in- 
flamed eyes, the early falling off of the hair, 
deafness, chronic and inflammatory rheumatism, 
spinal diseases of all kinds, are more or less fre- 
quently the direct consequences of the parent's 
indiscretion and disease, years before his ill- 
fated offspring ever saw the light of day. When 
I have indicated such fearful results as spring- 
ing from a single cause, it cannot be necessary 



46 dr. morrill's 

that I should again urge upon my reader the 
absolute necessity that, if he has unfortunately 
"been caught," there should neither be delay 
in his struggles to escape, but that his strength 
should not be wasted in misguided and misdi- 
rected efforts to attain that end. A single false 
step may plunge him in irretrievable misery and 
bodily ruin. No art can restore the mutilated 
face, the palsied limb, the vivacious countenance, 
or the sparkling eye, when once this disease has 
passed over them, and has left the impress of 
its poisonous seal. There is no rescue or salva- 
tion except in the immediate application of cura- 
tive means ; and all medical history and testimony 
will tell you that, up to this time, with all ordinary 
practising physicians, there has been no specific 
remedy found for this disease upon which any 
reliance could be placed, except in those rare 
cases in which mercury, in some of its many 
forms or combinations with other hardly less 
deleterious substances, have been found effec- 
tual, and then only in overpowering the disease 
by substituting, in very many instances, another 
and almost equally dangerous one in its stead. 
Every person of common intelligence is aware 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 47 

that what are generally termed mercurial dis- 
eases are of themselves the most distressing, 
troublesome, and protracted of those the physi- 
cian is called upon to treat. Painful, and even 
disgusting sores, eruptions, and discolorations 
of the skin, extreme susceptibility to atmospheric 
changes, sharp and shooting pains in the joints 
and limbs, frequent recurrence of torpidity in 
all the digestive organs, dyspepsia, with its long 
catalogue of horrors, exfoliations of portions of 
the bones, particularly in those parts especially 
exposed to observation ; these, and many more, 
too numerous to mention, are but a part of the 
serious evils arising from the indiscriminate use 
which has been made of this powerful drug in 
the cure of private diseases. 

With what joy and gratitude, then, should 
mankind hail the discovery of a system of 
thorough cure, unattended by any such dangers 
as I have described. A system so mild, so posi- 
tively certain in its effects, and withal so harm- 
less as to be utterly incapable of doing injury in 
any case whatever. And then, again, there are 
other consequences, not less serious and regret- 
able, entailing unhappiness and discontent in all 



48 



subsequent life. Impotency, that bane of mar- 
ried life, is not an infrequent consequence of 
not only the diseases to which I have alluded, 
but of the very remedies which have been un- 
wisely and unskilfully administered for their 
cure. How many there are who, in every other 
respect seem admirably mated, and in every 
way constituted to render each other happy, but 
whose desolate households indicate, but too 
surely, the cause of domestic disquietude, or an 
aching void, which can only be filled by healthy 
and beautiful offspring. 

Whatever may be the worldly circumstances 
of those who have entered into the marriage 
relation, the perpetuation of themselves in their 
children is one of the very first promptings of 
their hearts; and failing in this, the domestic 
hearthstone becomes cheerless, and the gifts of 
fortune, however numerous, are comparitively 
valueless and lightly esteemed. It is in cases of 
this kind that my remedies have proved of price- 
less and inestimable value. It matters not from 
what cause the inability may arise, whether 
from previous disease, or the injurious effects of 
unwholesome and poisonous drugs, or the weak- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 49 

ening and disorganizing effects of early habits. 
I have never .yet failed to reconstruct and re- 
store the enfeebled powers to effective Vitality, 
and to enable the husband to be in a condition 
not only fully to enjoy all the pleasing concom- 
itants of wedded life, but to realize his dearest 
wishes in the ability to propagate his species, 
and to raise up children to cheer, bless, and 
comfort him in his old age. That this can be 
done most happily and effectively, without re- 
source to any painful surgical operation, with- 
out resorting to those tonics and stimulants 
which, after producing a momentary excitement, 
leaves the patient more exhausted and enfeebled 
than before, I know; and there are hundreds 
now living within but a very narrow circuit of 
the place I now write, who can bear joyful tes- 
timony to the truth of my assertions. 

Let no one despair of help, for I assure him 
that, unless nature herself has been wanting in 
her usual gifts, and some such unwonted calam- 
ity as emasculation has taken place, I can most 
certainly restore all his lost or waning powers, 
and render him happy and hopeful in that home 
where before he was cheerless and desponding. 



50 dr. morrill's 

That this deficiency or loss of power may be- 
come more obdurate, and less easy to overcome, 
by omiting seasonably to resort to curative 
means, is also certain ; hence the necessity of 
attending to it as soon as the difficulty is known 
to exist. Delay only renders its removal a more 
protracted and aggravating process, whilst it 
cuts short days and years of bliss which might 
otherwise be enjoyed. Persons who find them- 
selves incapaciated to a full fecundative exercise 
of all the virile functions, should never rest 
satisfied short of a complete restoration of all 
their faculties; and to effect this through the 
safest and surest means should be to them a 
matter of the gravest consideration. Almost 
every locality, and especially our large cities, 
are literally crowded and overrun with unprin- 
cipled adventurers, whose pretensions and abil- 
ities are equally preposterous and absurd ; men 
who like those who 

'* Steal the livery of heaven to serve the devil in." 
enshroud their former insignificance and obscur- 
ity in some name, the possessor of which may 
at one time have had some distinction as a med- 
ical practitioner. These imposters and scourges 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 51 

of society waylay and beset the invalid and the 
suffering at every turn, and most unfortunate 
is the credulous and unsophisticated wight who 
suffers himself thus to be entrapped. Not one 
in fifty of them can boast of a single degree of 
medical knowledge or skill beyond that acquired 
perhaps as servant to some invalid, or gained 
from a superficial study of some old book of 
useful receipts which has alone constituted his 
whole medical library. Of this class of preten- 
ders you cannot be too guarded, Of such it 
may be truly said : ' ' They allure with a look, 
a wink, a nod. Hell does not contain so foul a 
fiend, nor earth so fell a foe ; the helpless and 
unfortunate are their victims, murder is their 
employment, and death their sport." I would 
not lay such stress upon this caution against 
empiricism and quackery, did not every day's 
experience more fully demonstrate to me the 
vast amount of mischief perpetrated by these 
reckless adventurers. Cases in which, had a 
thoroughly skilled specialist been consulted, in 
the first instance, would, with but little loss of 
time, and but moderate expense, been rapidly 
made to give way to the proper medical treat- 



52 dr. morrill's 

ment, have, through sheer ignorance, been 
made to assume forms so disgusting, repulsive, 
and dangerous, that I have long hesitated to as- 
sume the responsibility of prescribing for them. 
Intimately connected with those diseases hav- 
ing their origin in impure sexual intercourse, 
are others, which, though not traceable to the 
same cause, are none the less troublesome and 
very often the means not only of aggravating 
the sexual diseases, but tending to complicate 
them and perplex the medical attendant, as well 
as to create greater distress and pain to the suf- 
ferer himself. Watery collections in and be- 
tween those parts constituting the genital or- 
gans in man, are frequent ; and sometimes the 
causes are so involved in obscurity that the 
most skilful surgeons are often at a loss how to 
account for them. This difficulty, known to 
medical men under the name of hydrocele, has 
ever been regarded by the profession as incur- 
able by medical treatment, and only yielding to 
a surgical operation. Palliatives are resorted 
to, and the inconveniences arising from it ob- 
viated in part by drawing off the contents of 
the sac by a trocar, and by such other mechani- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 53 

cal appliances as the ingenuity of the practi- 
tioner may suggest. The many aggravated 
cases of this kind which I have met with in my 
practice, the almost insuperable bar presented 
by it to a successful treatment of a contagious 
disease affecting the parts at the same time, the 
reluctance with which the patient would listen to 
any suggestions as to the employ of "instru- 
ments " or mechanical appliances for his relief, 
spurred me on to every effort in my power to 
relieve this very painful and dangerous disease. 
Nor have my researches been in vain. I have 
discovered remedies, by the proper administra- 
tion of which this complaint is made to disap- 
pear almost as rapidly as mist before the morn- 
ing sun. 

The clumsy and expensive apparatus hitherto 
applied, the dreaded trocar, the stimulating in- 
jections of former days, are entirely dispensed 
with, and by a medicine prepared only by my- 
self, a process of absorption is engendered by 
which the disease is radically cured, almost un- 
consciously to the sufferer. And although I am 
constantly prescribing for, and treating it with 
the most signal success, and to the entire relief 



54 DR. MORRILL'S 

and satisfaction of my patients, and hundreds of 
my medical brethren are aware of the fact, yet, 
if applied to, themselves, and enquired of as to 
their ability to cure it, reply, that medical treat- 
ment would be unavailing. In view of these 
facts I feel impelled, from a sense of duty to 
suffering humanity, to invite every one afflicted 
with this complaint, to apply to me for relief. 
I will not merely refer them to testimonials of 
undoubted authenticity and credit as to what I 
have accomplished in this respect, but will 
convince them, by means easily to be compre- 
hended, that this great desideratum in the heal- 
ing art has at length been discovered. I know 
to what extent I incur the liability to the charge 
of egotism in making this assertion, and the 
slowness of the public to give credit to claims of 
extraordinary discoveries, especially in the treat- 
ment of those complaints which have so long 
baffled the skill of the most renowned physi- 
cians ; but they must remember that such has 
been the case in every age of the world, and 
that Darwin and Harvey, and Jenher, are not 
alone in having been the buts of ridicule and 
persecution because of their discoveries and 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 55 

efforts to benefit mankind by the introduction of 
new modes of warding off and curing disease. 
No dread of ridicule, nor the opposition of those 
who consider themselves as exclusively author- 
ized to prescribe for disease, shall ever deter me 
from thus boldly making known my ability to 
benefit my fellow-men. 

In the foregoing, so far as I have addressed 
myself to those of middle life, whose physical 
organs have become matured, and in who'm few 
or no organic changes are likely to occur for 
many years at least, I have called attention 
chiefly to such complaints and infirmities as im- 
mediately accompany, or closely follow, those 
self-engendered or contagious diseases, the re- 
sults of careless and promiscuous connection 
with those of the other sex. I have alluded 
also to the impediments which it creates to the 
formation of happy and permanent domestic 
relations, and to the satisfactory performance of 
all that is meant and intended in the marriage 
rite ; and if I have not catalogued all the mis- 
eries and evils flowing from the causes set forth, 
it is not that I regard them as of minor impor- 
tance, but it is that I have indulged the hope 



5G DR. 

that no one in his sober senses, with such dan- 
gers impending over him as those which I have 
described, would, for a single hour, delay appli- 
cation to the proper source for relief. Varied, 
aggravated and accelerated as they are in the 
different forms they assume, by reason of tem- 
perament, diet, constitutional defects, and the 
usual pursuits of business or amusements, there 
is no perfect standard for measuring their in- 
tensity, save in the long-tried skill of practical 
experience ; and I do not here purpose to load 
your mind with complicated details and nice 
distinctions which to you would be entirely un- 
intelligible, or, if understood, you would not be 
able to derive from them any solution to the 
difficulties and dangers which encompass you. 
This can only be afforded you by competent 
medical aid ; and I now, in the full confidence 
in my ability to relieve you of every trouble 
with which you are assailed, either now or in 
the prospective, invite you to try those truly 
healing remedies of which I am the discoverer 
and only possessor. One of the greatest mis- 
takes is that in which the victim imagines that 
if he discontinues such violations of the laws of 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 57 

his being, and becomes more temperate, regular, 
and abstemious in the indulgence of his passions 
and appetites, that disease will disappear, and 
the recuperative powers of nature will remedy 
every evil. But it must be borne in mind that 
disease is not SELF-CURING. The causes 
which have done the mischief and inflicted the 
injury must be removed before anything in the 
whole range of medical science can cure you. 
So long as there remains lurking in the system 
any relics of those fatal effects of the poison, 
engendered either by disease itself, or the im- 
proper remedies hitherto taken for your relief, 
you are in danger. Not only protracted and 
exquisitely painful complaints, such as chronic 
rheumatism, spinal affections, and the develop- 
ment of tubercular diseases, attack and threaten 
you with all their untold horrors and dangers, 
but death itself may warn you with its quick, 
sharp, paralytic stroke, that it is nigh at hand, 
and that the time for all earthly aid, with you, 
has passed forever. I must not omit to name 
another result of excessive sexual indulgence, 
the diseases incident to it, and the maltreatment 
to which they are so often subjected; prema- 



58 DR. MORRILl/S 

ture exhaustion and decay ; and this leads me 
to the third part of this little treatise, in which 
I design to address a few words to those who, 
having passed through the age of ripe manhood, 
have entered upon that period of life when, in 
the course of nature, the natural powers begin 
to wane, and the passions and appetites become 
less clamorous in their demands for gratifica- 
tion, or if not, in whom the physical capacity 
necessary to that purpose is diminished through 
former excessive indulgence, or as a conse- 
quence of the emasculating effects of the vile 
compounds to which they have been subjected 
through the ignorance and stupidity of those 
whom they have consulted when requiring med- 
ical treatment ; and I may as well remark here 
as anywhere, that the early loss of sexual power 
may very often be justly attributed to an exces- 
sive indulgence in other than in the unrestrained 
gratification of the desire for sexual intercourse. 
The early and indiscriminate use of stimulating 
and alcoholic drinks, an excessive use of to- 
bacco, by which its nicotine qualities are ab- 
sorbed and taken into the system, especially 
with those who lead sedentary and inactive . 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 59 

lives, are among the many causes of premature 
decay; and when this period arrives, and full 
consciousness is felt that such is really the case, 
what can be more depressing to the mind, or 
more calculated to inspire an aversion to life, ( 
and to regard all its hitherto anticipated pleas- 
ures and promised blessings as a base delusion 
and a cheat ? 



CHAPTER III. 



AFTER the attainment of the ages of fifty- 
five or sixty years, in man, the generative 
powers gradually diminish, and, declining with 
increasing years, at the age of seventy and 
thence onward, cease to be able to accomplish 
the objects either of gratifying the passions or 
the perpetuation of his species. The depriva- 
tion, however, of these pleasures are not the 
only loss which he feels, and over which he is 
called to mourn. With the symptoms of ap- 
proaching decay, and the waning forces of 
manly power, he is sensible also of a decline in 
those mental and executive faculties by the force 



60 DR. MORRILL'S 

of which he has hitherto been enabled to over- 
come obstacles to success, and to acquire wealth 
and position in the world. It is true, that occa- 
sionally we meet with men of even three score 
years and ten and upwards, who display in all 
their movements and calculations but few or no 
evidences of senility, and who, up to a very ad- 
vanced period in life, seem to enjoy almost un- 
broken powers both of mind and body. I do 
not refer to that class of old men, the fag end 
of whose lives are devoted to the gratification 
of the baser passions of avarice and gain, which 
outlive every other sentiment, but to those whose 
bodily powers, carefully husbanded and pre- 
served, have suffered no untoward deteriora- 
tion by the habits and practices of youthful in- 
discretions nor the excesses of middle age. 
These, having performed all the requirements 
of life's duties well, justly, in the evening of 
its journey pass calmly onward to its close, un- 
interrupted and unassailed by any of those evils 
which embitter the declining years of the great 
majority of our fellow beings. 

These last, unhappily, in almost every stage 
of their progress, are constantly requiring the 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 61 

fostering care of benevolent hearts and willing 
hands to direct and lead them over the, perhaps, 
too dreary and barren wastes spread out before 
them, and to some extent the aids of science to 
assist in reinvigorating their dormant faculties. 
I have devoted much time to this interesting 
study, how best to restore to its former posses- 
sors the lost powers of virility, so as to enable 
them at a comparitively advanced period of life 
to enjoy again, to a rational extent, all the 
pleasures of ripe manhood with those of the 
opposite sex. Pursuing my investigations upon 
strict scientific principles, and aided by the am- 
ple means for experiment which my extensive 
practice has afforded, I have arrived at results 
as gratifying as they were new and astonishing. 
"Without laying any claim to any such discovery 
as that wonderful fountain of youth which 
tempted the too credulous Ponce de Leon to 
brave the dangers of an unknown sea, I may, 
nevertheless, claim a discovery, which for cen- 
turies has baffled the skill and research of the 
most eminent philosophers and sages which the 
world has ever produced. I have succeeded in 
doing this without in any degree whatever draw- 



62 dr. morrill's 

ing upon the reserved forces of life, so as to in- 
duce exhaustion and prostration after each re- 
curring effort ; but its effects are so gently and 
gradually tonic and stimulating as to give per- 
manent vigor and tone to every part of the sys- 
tem. Old age is thus shorn of half its terrors, 
and life, indeed, remains a perfect blessing to 
its very close. Not only are all the procreative 
faculties restored and invigorated by these won- 
derful remedies, but every part of the body is 
made to share in their healthful and life giving 
properties. I would not thus speak so confi- 
dently and assuringly had I not witnessed in 
numberless instances the complete realization 
of all which I have here described. It is not 
yet three months since I was called upon by a 
gentleman of over sixty years of age, whose 
circumstances, in relation to property and 
family affairs rendered it highly expedient that 
he should take to himself a wife, after twice 
having become a widower. Although he felt, 
as he told me, in regard to that matter, the dan- 
ger as well as what he considered the impro- 
priety of uniting himself to one so many years 
younger than himself, as was the lady for whom 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 63 

he felt a decided preference, he could not well 
resist the inclination he felt to be governed in 
the matter by the motives of choice exclusively, 
provided he could feel assured that subsequent 
events, anticipated from conscious debility and 
impotence by reason of his own advanced age, 
could be so controlled by medical skill as would 
obviate all danger of disagreement and infelicity 
between them after the marriage ceremony. I 
gave him the reasons of my strong conviction 
that this could be satisfactorily accomplished 
for him, and he immediately subjected himself 
to the regimen and treatment which I imposed. 
I found in him. a most submissive and docile pa- 
tient, who unscrupulously and faithfully fol- 
lowed the directions I gave him ; and I had the 
gratification, as well as the pleasure of seeing 
him, in less than three months from the time of 
his first application to me, rejoicing in the pos- 
session of the woman of his choice. He subse- 
quently informed me, with a countenance beam- 
ing with gratitude and thanks, that there was 
not a happier or a more contented couple on the 
face of the earth; and he attributed to me, and 
the truly happy effects of the medicines I had 



64 



prepared for him, the happiness which he then 
enjoyed. Indeed, I might cite other cases 
equally as interesting, but I do not feel at lib- 
erty to particularize, lest I might wound the 
sensitiveness of those who have confided to me, 
in my professional capacity, those matters which 
I cannot conscientiously nor honorably refer to, 
even to encourage and benefit others in a simi- 
lar way. Let every one, however, be assured 
that age no longer forms any impediment to an 
enjoyment of all the physical functions of our 
being, and that wedlock, so far from being 
shunned as a severe and unhappy test of the 
virile forces, resulting only in failure and mor- 
tification, may now be consummated with all 
the assurance, hopefulness, and ardor of youth. 
Thus far it will have been noted by the intel- 
ligent reader, that I have addressed myself al- 
most exclusively to gentlemen, and my obser- 
vations respecting the evils arising from mas- 
turbation, or self abuse, excessive and promis- 
cuous indulgence, and the various evils result- 
ing therefrom, have been directed chiefly to 
those of the male sex, for whose benefit this 
treatise was originally designed. I am quite 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 65 

well aware however, of the fact, that its circu- 
lation and perusal has not been entirely re- 
stricted to them, and that it has found its way, 
in no very limited degree, into the hands of 
both married and single ladies. In order there- 
fore, that they may find in it matter for their 
especial consideration and benefit, I have 
thought it advisable to discuss somewhat more 
at large, and in accordance with their physiologi- 
cal structure, the same topics, at least so far as 
to render this work useful, as well as interesting 
to them. What I have said in regard to early 
habits, the undue exercise of the passions, and 
the mischief arising from excess and indiscre- 
tion, are as applicable to them as to those of the 
male sex. It does not require that the female 
should be learned in all the anatomical and 
physiological knowledge which science can im- 
part, concerning those things, that she should be 
able to comprehend and appreciate the differ- 
ence which exists between herself and her 
brother in this respect. Instinct is far better 
than books, and she knows better than books 
can teach her, that only in model and form she 
differs from her mate ; that she is moved by the 



€6 dr. morrill's 

same passions, subject to the same infirmities, 
and victim to the same diseases as he is ; that 
like causes, so far as disease is concerned, pro- 
duce in her the same effects as in him, varied 
only by the difference in structure, and hence 
submissive to the same remedial treatment. 
But there are other and different classes of dis- 
ease to which she is subject, and of which the 
male cannot participate. More delicate in their 
organization, and less robust, owing chiefly to 
their seclusion, the female cannot resist the 
changes of atmosphere, climate and circum- 
stances, so firmly as can the hardier male, and 
owing to various causes, well understood, she 
often becomes, from her earliest years, the sub- 
ject of pain and suffering, of a nature to which 
he is an entire stranger. If, however, she un- 
fortunately becomes afflicted with any of those 
troublesome and offensive diseases affecting the 
urino-genital organs which require medical 
treatment (and there are very few which do 
not), the same remedies, differing only in form of 
exhibition, are in most cases applicable to both. 
In gonorrhea, chancroids, chancres and syphilis, 
in all its various stages, the same pharmaceuti- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 67 

cal agencies are resorted to, and no intelligent 
person need be misled or confused in their appli- 
cation or use, by reason of the difference of sex. 
Except in those cases where a resort to in- 
strumental agencies, such as the use of bougies 
the catheter, and sometimes even syringes, are 
called for, the administration of remedies for 
the ordinary diseases of the procreative organs, 
is as simple a matter as the taking a cathartic 
pill, or a bowl of herb tea. In cases where 
urethral injections are necessary, although it is 
more advisable that they be administered under 
the immediate supervision of the medical atten- 
dant, yet with a little instruction from him, 
carefully heeded and understood by the patient, 
injections may be safely self-administered. It 
now only remains for me to particularize the 
various sexual complaints most generally prev- 
alent, and which you may be permitted to treat 
for yourselves, until proper medical assistance 
can be procured. Of these, 

. GONOKBHEA OR CLAP 

Is the most common, and unfortunately the 
most easily and readily taken, especially by the 



68 dr. morrill's 

male. This is an affection confined exclusively 
to the urethra, and makes its appearance in 
from two to three, and sometimes four days after 
exposure. It is produced solely by the intro- 
duction of the virus into the meatus or opening 
in the male organ, where, communicating with 
the mucuous membrane, it infects the whole 
passage, gradually progressing from the open- 
ing downwards, until the whole is infected and 
subjected to the inflammatory action of the poi- 
son, producing in its course, the perulent dis- 
charge, the chordee and painful erections, 
gleet, etc., with all the distressing and annoying 
accompaniments which invariably attend it if 
left unchecked, or improperly treated. 

The approach of the disease is unmistakeably 
indicated by the slight inflammation at the meatus 
or opening, the general uneasiness and pain in 
the region of the hips and loins, the burning 
and scalding sensation in passing the urine, 
when the perulent discharge, staining the linen 
to a dull yellow, tells the whole story, and as- 
sures you that you have got the clap; At this 
stage of the disease your course of action is 
clear. You should not hesitate a moment ; do 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 69 

not wait to make certainty more sure, by pre- 
tending to doubt whether you are or not dis- 
eased. But do not get frightened, nor become 
excited; that would only add to your trouble 
and augment the difficulties of an early sup- 
pression of the disease. If you are not conve- 
nient to a reliable physician, get a small glass, or 
gutta percha syringe, and get from the apothe- 
cary the following : Sulphate of zinc and 
tanic acid, two grains each, dissolved in two 
fluid ounces of pure soft water, putting the so- 
lution into a wide open-mouthed vial, so as to 
draw it up with the syringe directly from the 
vial, rather than being under the necessity of 
first pouring it out into a cup, and from thence 
filling your syringe. The ordinary glass sy- 
ringe, half filled, will be sufficient to begin with. 
Having emptied the bladder, by passing your 
urine, with the syringe in the right hand, work- 
ing the piston with the fore-finger, insert the 
pipe into the opening, and grasping the organ, 
some two or three inches down, pressing the 
the passage together, so as to prevent the injec- 
tion from passing beyond, inject the solution 
carefully and neatly, so as to fill the passage 



70 dr. morrill's 

from the orifice downward, to where you have 
closed it by the pressure of your left thumb and 
fore-finger ; after withdrawing the syringe, close 
the opening by your right thumb and fore-finger, 
and with your left, gently work up and down for 
a moment along the passage, so that the injected 
solution shall fairly wash it on all sides; this 
may be repeated once, so as to make sure that 
the injection has been thorough. This opera- 
tion may be gone through at least three times a 
day, for three or four days, when, if the disease 
does not subside, it is evident that this, as it is 
termed, the abortive treatment, will not avail. 
If it has not, you will in the meantime be re- 
minded of it by an increase in the discharge 
and violence of the inflammation, with, it may be, 
a chordee, which is a consequence of a turgid 
state of the lower division of the penis, which 
prevents its expansion during erection, leaving 
it bent downwards, and occasioning almost in- 
conceivable pain and distress. This may be 
alleviated by the application of ice, cold water, 
or, what is just as well, throwing ones self down 
upon the cold floor and exposing the parts to 
the air. But when the disease has attained this 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 71 

stage of its progress, the syringe becomes not 
only useless, but positively dangerous in the 
hands of one who is not an expert, and other 
remedies must be resorted to. These are, first 
the doctor, and always the doctor, but if the 
doctor cannot be reached, then I should advise 
palliative remedies, until he can be consulted. 
Of those, I know of none better and safer than 
the various preparations of copaiba and cubebs. 
The following recipe can be put up by almost 
any apothecary, and will be found efficacious : 

Two ounces copaiba, one ounce powdered 
cubebs, one-half drachm aluminis, and magne- 
sia sufficient to compound a mass, divide into 
pills of five grains each ; take four to six three 
times a day ; or, if the patient is of weak habit, 
and delicate stomach, take copaiba two ounces, 
Magnesia one ounce, oil of peppermint twenty 
drops, powdered cubebs and subnitrate of bis- 
muth each two ounces ; divide into pills of 
five grains each, and take three, three times a 
day. 

In case of severe chordee, camphor is the 
very best remedy I know of, and when taken in 
a liquid form, rarely fails to give relief. One 



72 dr. morrill's 

drachm of the tincture, in a glass of water, 
taken on going to bed, and every time you wake 
up with chordee, will give effectual relief, and a 
perseverance in the use of this remedy will 
cause all tendency to chordee to disappear in 
two or three nights. 

I have not alluded to the use of nitrate of sil- 
ver, as an abortive remedy in the early stage of 
gonorrhea, although of all substances, it is un- 
doubtedly the most efficacious and reliable, but in 
inexperienced hands, is exceedingly dangerous, 
and I would not advise its use, except under the 
immediate direction of a physician. It is a well- 
known fact, that the disease will often exhaust it- 
self in time, but in running through its various 
stages, it sometimes takes months ; in the mean- 
time the victim suffers untold torments, which 
the expenditure of a few dollars, and the timely 
aid of a good physician, would have saved him. 

The reader will have observed that in all the 
foregoing pages I have carefully avoided enter- 
ing into details, or giving way to that style of 
composition which seems almost inseparable 
from the medical profession. I have not, by a 
prolix and confused use of medical and pharma- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 73 

ceutical terms, perplexed his mind, nor sought 
to inspire an opinion of my skill, by an exhibi- 
tion of professional and technical terms, only 
understood by the regular student and philolo- 
gist. I have rather sought to intimate, in plain 
and readily understood language, matters and 
subjects upon which a great deal of ignorance 
unfortunately prevails. I have sought to point 
out the dangers and perils arising from certain 
causes, which are to-day working avast amount 
of e\?il and distress throughout the whole country. 
I have also called your attention to the ready 
and certain means of cure which I possess, and 
of which all may avail themselves at a moderate 
expense, without incurring the least danger of 
relapse or exposure. And finally, I invite you 
to test an experience of thirty years' successful 
practice, in which I have more successfully 
treated every disease to which humanity is lia- 
ble, than any other physician in New England. 
My arrangements and provisions for this pur- 
pose are most extensive, and peculiarly adapted 
to suit and please the taste of the most delicate 
and fastidious. My reception rooms are ample, 
and even luxuriously furnished; and patients, 



74 br. morrill's 

whilst waiting for, and during consultation, are 
free from all inquisitive observation. My med- 
icines, which are all prepared under my own 
immediate supervision, are procured for me by 
herbalists of rare skill, and imported for my ex- 
clusive use ; and whilst I devote every faculty I 
possess to the relief and cure of those who place 
themselves under my care, I am particular, 
also, to so regulate and apportion the price of 
my services that none, however unfortunate, 
may be driven away by the fear of excessive, 
or exorbitant charges. My consultation rooms 
and medical office are at No. 3 Bulfinch Street, 
Boston, where I may be found at all hours 
during the day, and to which all communica- 
tions for advice and medicines should be par- 
ticularly addressed. 

FREDERICK MORRILL, M. D. 

No. 3 Bulfinch Street, Boston. 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 75 



CHAPTER IV. 



I PRESUME that there are many who, on 
opening this hook, expected to find a larger 
number of prescriptions for the cure of diseases ; 
also directions for taking the prescribed reme- 
dies, and rules for diet, etc., etc., while taking 
them. Here let me say, that whoever looks for 
that, in any properly -prepared treatise of this 
kind, will always be disappointed. I would 
most cheerfully send prescriptions to sufferers, 
but it would be utterly impracticable, for the 
reason that the principal remedies, which I 
use in curing diseases, are imported by myself, 
from foreign countries, for my own practice; 
and very many of them, the most efficacious, 
cannot be obtained from any druggist in this 
country. The reader will readily see that any 
prescription, under such circumstances, would 
be worthless to him. I not only import my 
herbs, barks, roots, and medicinal plants, but I 
myself, prepare them for use. I do this that I 
may be sure, beyond all doubt, that my patients 
get the pure article, without any adulteration, 
or any possibility of mistake ; and to this fact I 



76 DR. MORRILL'S 

attribute, in a great measure, my success in 
treating and curing disease. The concentrated 
form in which I prepare them, enables me to 
send them to any part of the country, by mail, 
or by express, at trifling expense ; so that there 
would be really no reason for furnishing pre- 
scriptions to my patients, even if they could get 
them compounded by the druggist. 

I have thought that I could not do a better 
service to my readers than to give a selection 
from the large correspondence I am daily re- 
ceiving from persons seeking my advice, or such 
as have been under my care, as somewhat illus- 
trative of the peculiar cases I am most frequently 
called upon to treat. These letters are not only 
calculated to show the embarrassments under 
which invalids frequently labor in regard to the 
choice of a physician, when seeking to regain 
lost health, but narrating, as they do, actual 
cases attempted to be described by the sufferers 
themselves, they may enable the reader to com- 
pare his own with them, and to judge whether 
he may not, with every hope of relief, resort to 
the same means of cure. 

Whilst as a general rule, I usually destroy all 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 77 

correspondence of a private nature, especially- 
all such as I consider that the writers would 
prefer not to be in danger of a perusal by any 
other than myself, there are cases which I con- 
sider of too interesting a character, and which 
required a degree of care, skill, and attention, 
to perfect a cure, that I have, in the interest of 
humanity, preserved such an outline of them as 
would enable me to refer to, and recall what- 
ever of importance might be connected with 
them, for my future guidance in similar cases. 
In such circumstances, I preserve only trans- 
cripts of all the -correspondence, destroying the 
original, whilst I erase all names and other 
means of exposure, of matters which might 
wound the sensibilities of the writers. 

The subjoined letters I have selected because 
they represent, better than I could otherwise do, 
different grades and classes of physical disa- 
bility produced by causes particularly treated 
upon in this book, and which, more than any 
other class of diseases, I have been called upon 
to treat. From thousands of similar endorse- 
ments of the happy results of my system of med- 
ical treatment, I am emboldened in claiming for 



78 dr. morrill's 

it a superiority over all others. The living 
witnesses whom I daily meet and recognize as 
of those who have, in their persons, experienced 
the healing and life-preserving efficacy of my 
remedies, and who, from being debilitated, 
broken down, despairing invalids, looking for- 
ward to death as the only termination of their 
sufferings, are to-day in the enjoyment of all 
the blessings which health can confer, and 
amongst our most useful, active, and enterpris- 
ing citizens. With such examples before them, 
no one should hesitate or delay a single hour in 
securing to himself the means of recovery and 
restoration which I am fully prepared to offer 
him. 

From the fact that I have, in this little vol- 
ume, called the reader's attention chiefly to 
those disorders arising from an indiscreet and 
overtasked indulgence of the sexual and pro- 
creative faculties, some of my readers may be 
led to infer that I limit my practice exclusively 
to them. This would be a mistake. Being a 
regularly-educated physician, my range of prac 
tice is not restricted to any particular branch of 
my profession, although I have devoted a large 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 79 

share of my attention to the investigation and 
study of the utero-genital organs, under the 
belief that to them might be traced, much oftener 
than is generally supposed, a large share of 
those diseases which annually disables, and 
eventually carries off, so many thousands of our 
most promising and interesting young men. 
Consumption, diseases of the heart and liver, 
rheumatism, imperfections of sight and hearing, 
baldness, and many other complaints intimately 
connected with, and in a large degree owing 
their early development to causes directly re- 
sulting from a too-frequent violation of nature's 
laws in this very thing, are subjects in which I 
feel myself fully justified in recommending my 
remedies, and in which I have been equally 
successful in my treatment. To either sex, 
male or female, requiring medical or surgical 
treatment, I am prepared to offer every facility 
and convenience whilst prescribing for every 
case of disease or accident to which the human 
frame is liable. Medicines carefully prepared 
by myself, neatly and securely packed for trans- 
portation to any part of the world, with every 
needed direction for their use, as the case may 



80 dr. morrill's 

require, will be promptly forwarded to such as 
may wish to avail themselves of my professional 
services. 

[Letter from a gentleman.] 

G , Me, Sept. — 

Dr. Frederic Morrill : 

Dear Sir — It is under feelings of the deepest 
despondency and mortification that I address 
you this letter. I have long contemplated do- 
ing it, but my resolution has failed me when- 
ever I have sat down to accomplish it. I am, 
however, reduced to that degree of hopeless- 
ness, and, I may add helplessness, that unless I 
do something, and that most speedily, I shall be 
so completely shorn of all energy and manhood 
as to be utterly incapable of making myself un- 
derstood by you or any one else. You already, 
I imagine, comprehend the difficulty under 
which I labor. I am now about eighteen years 
of age, and have been, almost since I arrived 
at the age of puberty, addicted to that most 
horrible of all soul and body destroying vice, — 
self abuse. First indulging in the practice at 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 81 

rare intervals, it has grown upon me as I have 
advanced in life, inflicting new tortures, and 
throwing open before me vistas of future tor- 
ments, which combine to render the present, 
past, and future, in the endurance and anticipa- 
tion, too terrible to bear or describe. I was 
led into this vile habit, as all boys are, by bad 
example and associations with those who, being 
older than myself, ought to have known better. 
I did not then, as I do now, attribute the many 
painful and depressing ills to which I was sub- 
ject, to the physical derangements occasioned 
by this vice. I had, I think, a scrofulous taint, 
inherited from my parents. This became quite 
early developed, and for years I was afflicted 
with a weakness and inflammation of the eyes, 
which at times was almost insupportable. Cos- 
tiveness, and constipation also, always rendered 
it necessary that I should be taking some laxa- 
tive and cathartic medicine. When I resorted 
to medical advice, not one of the many physi- 
cians whom I consulted ever made the inquiry 
as to my habits, or suggested the possibility that 
I was paying the penalty of solitary vice. Had 
my occupation or pursuits been such as to af- 



82 DR. 

ford me constant daily labor and exercise in the 
open air, I have no doubt it would have been far 
better for me ; but since my fourteenth year I 
have been a student, either at home or abroad, 
and although I have enjoyed every advantage 
and opportunity, to-day feel myself utterly in- 
competent and incapable of profiting by them. 
A loss of memory and a lack of energy, inabili- 
ty to any continuous exercise of the reasoning 
powers, a want of tenacity of purpose, a confu- 
sion of ideas, timidity, bashfulness, and a con- 
stant apprehension of coming evil, so besets me 
that I sometimes wish that I might die to escape 
it. Indeed, I have often thought of suicide, 
and am sometimes seriously tempted to resort 
to it as a relief from my troubles. I have read 
books and treatises upon the subject, and have, 
times without number, resolved, nay, sworn, to 
abandon the practice. But I find to my sorrow 
that I have not got the strength of will and pur- 
pose to do this. To such a state of debility am 
I reduced that I find I am powerless to carry 
into effect any resolution whatever ; and I am at 
length satisfied that a man left alone, unaided, 
in this condition, is entirely unable, of himself, 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 83 

to emerge, from the depths into which he has 
fallen. I have hitherto kept this to myself, 
fearing, or rather ashamed, to make a confident 
of any one. But I can do so no longer. The 
continued drains upon my system, and the very 
foundation of my powers of manhood, have 
heen so long continued, that I have become the 
involuntary victim of all those ruinous conse- 
quences which flow from such a cause ; cold 
night sweats, a troublesome cough, a burning 
and feverish skin, disturbed sleep, and dreams 
too horrid and too * * * * to narrate, admonish 
me, that if I do not soon obtain relief, the at- 
tempt to do so will be too late. I have there- 
fore resolved to break through the reserve and 
moody silence behind which I have hitherto 
shrouded myself, and, cost what it may, throw 
myself into the hands of some one in whom I 
can place confidence, and submit entirely to his 
guidance and direction until I am either restored 
to my former self or laid at rest in the grave. I 
have heard much of you, of your willingness to 
undertake such cases as mine, and the great 
success which attends your course of practice, 
and the remedies you give. If you think you 



84: dr. morrill's 

can cure me, consider me as your patient from 
this moment. Not wishing to occupy your time 

for nothing, I enclose dollars for which 

please give me credit, and write to me at once 
what I am to do. 

I am, very respectfully, &c. 

S W- . 

Note. — The reader will clearly perceive from the fore- 
going letter that this was not only a most distressing case, 
but that, notwithstanding the writer had intended to give 
me such a detailed statement as would enable me to pre- 
scribe for him directly, yet, on a more carefrl examination, 
he will eee that there was not that circumstantial detail of 
particulars necessary for my guidance in a case of so much 
importance. Apprised of the unhappy young gentleman's 
inability at that time to visit me at my office, I wrote to him 
some two or three times, suggesting topics upon which I de- 
sired to be m< re fully informed. In the course of a fortnight 
I had succeeded in perfecting quite a satisfactory diagnosis 
of his case, and immediately put in active operation the 
course of treatment I had marked out. It was not to be ex- 
pected that habits so confirmed, and maladies so aggrava- 
ted, could be at once broken up. Experience had too often 
shown me that this class of patients, however determined 
and resolved thev might express themselves to be in the 
beginning, were not always to be relied upon in carrying 
out your views in regard to them, and that not unfre 
quently they defeated your best efforts in their behalf, by 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 85 

but a half compliance with your directions. A temporary 
relief, and a slight change for the better, would give rise to 
a presumptuous desire to break through the rules you 
had prescribed for their guidance, aud before you sus- 
pected it, they would complain of the want of efficacy of 
your treatment, and fall back into the old line of complaint 
and despair. 

But I am not in the practice of letting patients foil me in 
my labors to effect their cure, in that way ; and it is at the 
very moment of their greatest discouragement, that T feel 
that I am beginning to get them well in hand, and that, 
when they find they are past all hope, except through out- 
side help, I am most certain that I have them on the sure 
road to recovery and better days. And so it was with this 
young man. By encouragemeut and persuasions I soon 
won his entire confidence, and had the satisfaction of wit- 
nessing his gradual progress from almost total prostration 
to renewed vigor and health. I did not even resort to the 
expedient of a change of residence, nor to his giving up his 
books. My medical treatment was directed towards sub- 
duing and soothing the nervous irritation which his habits 
had engendered, and to strengthen and give tone to every 
faculty which had felt the debilitating effects of his former 
indigencies. From the constancy of my correspondence 
with him, I did not allow the slightest change or symptom 
to escape me ; and although I had never seen him, I felt as 
assured of the beneficial changes which were taking place, 
as though I had him daily in my presence. Gradually the 
style of his correspondence, as well as the steadiness of his 
hand and eye, indicated by his penmanship, plainly showed 



86 dr. morrill's 

the great improvement going on, until at length I was sup- 
prised by a call from him to thank me in person for what I 
had done for him. 

Let the reader imagine for himself, a hale, portly young 
man, bearing about him every mark of a healthy and al- 
most perfect manhood ; a frank, open, and ingenuous coun- 
tenance, that shrinks from no scrutiny, and a bright, spark- 
ling eye that almost fascinates you by its beaming lustre 
and intelligence, and you have before you the patient 
whose case I have just been describing. He was tho- 
roughly cured. Every faculty of both soul and body ap- 
peared to be fully adequate to all the exigencies of an hon- 
orable and successful future, to which his means, and his 
family and social relations, would justify him to aspire. I 
am happy to say that, his subsequent career has realized 
the highest expectations I had formed of him. Equally 
distinguished at the bar of his adopted State, as in the na- 
tional councils, he is, at this time, one of the most promis- 
ing and rising men in the country. 

The following letter is from a middle-aged 
gentleman, whose early life had been marked by 
misfortunes of no ordinary severity, which had 
preyed upon his health to that extent as to oc- 
casionally unfit him for all business occupations, 
as also to render him incapable of any mental 
enjoyments whatever. Strange as it may ap- 
pear, this gentleman's appearance indicated in 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 87 

no very marked degree, the infirmities of which 
he complained. He was rather plethoric and 
full in form, and his countenance was more like 
that of a " bon vivant" than otherwise. To 
one unaccustomed to read the " human face di- 
vine," he would have been taken for almost any- 
body else than one who was suffering under a 
most complicated form of disease, having its 
origin in a criminal indulgence so vile and sen- 
sual as to excite our horror and aversion towards 
one, who, in the form of man, could surrender 
himself up to such gross and unnatural appe- 
tites and desires : 

B , 186—. 

Dear Sir : 

In the short interview which I had with you, 
yesterday, I perceived that I staggered your 
faith in my truthfulness when I stated to you 
the troubles which oppress me, and which, not- 
withstanding the fair and rosy blush of health I 
wear, renders life almost an unsupportable bur- 
den. You were correct in your opinion that my 
case was an abnormal one, dependent upon 
causes whicn required a frank avowal on my 



88 dr. morrill's 

part before you could venture to prescribe for 
me. Although not particularly troubled with 
any excess of squeamishness in matters of this 
kind, I must confess that I felt reluctant to ex- 
pose to you, verbally, the true character of my 
mental and physical deformities. Did I tell you 
that I was a brute, I should come far short of 
conveying to you any just idea of myself. I am 
a brute, embodying every animal instinct, with 
all the reasoning, cunning, planning, and exe- 
cuting faculties of the human being in their 
highest degree and perfection. A native of the 
south of Europe, and inheriting all the hot and 
fiery instincts of my race, I have ever sought 
the gratification of every unholy and unlicensed 
passion to which the creature, man, may be en- 
slaved. 

At a very early age, even in my boyhood, I 
broke through every bound of religion, morality, 
and blood itself, to gratify the intense desires 
which overwhelmed me. This ever-consuming 
fire seemed to derive new force and energy up- 
on what it fed on, when satiety and disgust led 
me to search out new sources of gratification, 
until the most unnatural tastes and propensities 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 89 

took possession of me. Consorting with men 
and even animals, became far more preferable 
than with the fairest and most enticing of the 
opposite sex; and I became so addicted to it, 
that I felt myself as, indeed, that "pestilence 
which walketh at noon day," as, vampyre like, I 
fattened upon the victims I destroyed. These 
horrible and unnatural gratifications seems to 
have had the effect of blending and incorpora- 
ting their mischievous and deadening influence 
throughout every faculty of my being ; shame, 
morality, and virtue lost their distinctive quali- 
ties in my mind, and gluttony, intemperance, 
and excess of every kind have usurped complete 
mastery over me. One who knows me well has 
frequently intimated that I must look to moral 
rather than medical influences to change me 
from what I am. But I know letter. Moral 
effort can hold no successful conflict with the 
overwhelming physical clamorings of an organi- 
zation like mine. " A sound mind in a sound 
body," is a maxim of wisdom, but, the sound 
body must come first. Insanity is, I presume, 
the consequence of a diseased brain ; and al- 
though a diseased brain requires the aid of moral 



90 dr. morrill's 

forces to its proper readjustment, yet a nice 
and just adaptation of sanitary appliances must 
precede as well as accompany them, to render 
them available. 

Impotency, emasculation, and sterility admits 
of a ready cure at *the hands of the skilful 
physician, who, like yourself, has made this 
branch of physiological science his particular 
study. If excitants, tonics, and stimulants pro- 
mote action in the one class of cases, why 
should not antiphlogistics, anodynes, and kin- 
dred remedies quench those fires which turn 
man into a demon, and renders life one constant 
rebellion against every thing pure and good. I 
have great faith in you, doctor, hence this dis- 
closure. Are you willing to try your skill in 
this strange case ? I will submit to anything, 
do anything, that I may once enjoy the tranquil- 
ity and self-possession of perfectly cool-headed 
manhood. My means are ample, and they are 
at your disposal ; all I ask in return is, that I 
may be enabled to go forth amongst my fellow- 
men without that crushing sense of moral de- 
gradation which is now more oppressive than any 
"fearful looking for of fiery indignation, " in 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 91 

the future, can possibly be. Any encourage- 
ment you can give me will materially influence 
my movements for the future, and I will most 
gladly avail myself of your earliest intimation 
that a call from me would be agreeable. 
With great esteem, I am yours, etc. 

L F . 



Note. This gentleman had by no -means overstated his 
case. At my suggestion he took appartments in my vicin- 
ity where I could daily observe his conduct. It was clearly 
evident that his misfortunes were chiefly owing to a mor- 
bid state of the whole systen, similar to that which in some 
persons manifests itself in a ravenous appetite, which can 
only be appeased by devouring enormous quantities of tho 
most indigestible and revolting substances for food. I felt 
satisfied that the case w T as a fair one for medical treatment, 
and governed myself accordingly. It would be useless for 
me to attempt to describe to the nonprofessional reader 
the course I adopted, and readily submitted to by my pa- 
tient, to exorcise this "unclean spirit" which possessed 
him. Suffice it to say, that, after an unusual degree of 
application on my part, I had the satisfaction at length of 
reducing the "fair proportions of his ruling passion," until 
he sobered down into a rational human being. Bereft of 
no quality, nor in anywise shorn of his proper manhood, he 
has become a model of regularity, moderation, and of all 
the gentler virtues. His striking manly beauty still marks 



92 



him as a general favorite, whilst those coarser features 
which formerly marred him, have disappeared forever. My 
last letter from him, dated several years ago, informed me, 
that at length he had settled down, rejoicing in the society 
of an amiable companion, and with an undisturbed temper- 
ament and tranquillity of soul which promised to compen- 
sate him, in part, for the tumultuous and stormy past. 

I have hesitated long before I could persuade myself to 
give place to the foregoing in these pages. But on reflec- 
tion I felt that, as it was a true record, and represented a 
class by no means rare or uncommon, I would not withhold 
it, from the apprehensions of the criticisms of the incredu- 
lous or narrow-minded. Human nature is the same every- 
where, beset by the same temptations, and destroyed by 
the same vices; and the medical man, better than all 
others, knows to what extent the justification exists for 
calling attention to this gentleman's case. 



[Letter Third.] 

D , 186—. 

Doctor Morrill, 

Boston, Mass. : 

Dear Sir : I enclose a gentleman's card, 
with his endorsement upon the back of it, well 
known to you, as my introduction. For some 
months past I have been in search of a skilful 
medical man, whom I might safely consult in a 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 93 

matter involving not only my own happiness, but 
the peace, health, and, possibly, the life itself of 
my wife. For several years she has been an in- 
valid. She is now thirty-three years of age, and 
we have been married upwards of twelve years. 
Shortly after the birth of our child, a son of 
nearly eleven years of age, her health began to 
decline, since which time, notwithstanding the 
many physicians to whom she has applied, and 
the various means resorted to for relief, she has 
continued in. a state of debility so nearly border- 
ing on downright sickness as to be seldom capa- 
ble of attending to any of the duties, or enjoying 
any of the comforts, much less the pleasures, of 
society, or even of life itself. So repeated has 
been her failures to obtain beneficial medical 
aid, that, long since she gave up all hope of ob- 
taining it at the hands of any of those physicians 
whom we have been in the habit of regarding as 
our oracles in all matters of this kind, She de- 
clares herself disgusted, and wearied out by this 
constant succession of potions, pills, and pow- 
ders, tonics, stimulants, and alteratives, as they 
are termed, and has about made up her mind to 
resign herself to her fate, whatever that may be. 



94: 



This is not so much to be wondered at when I 
inform you that there is hardly a physician of 
any note in the city with whom she has not con- 
sulted, many of them repeatedly, but all of them 
to little purpose. My friend, who so highly 
recommends you, has endeavored to prevail upon 
her to consult you ; but with a perversity, if not 
peculiar to her sex, at least strongly character- 
istic of her infirmities, she persists in her reso- 
lution henceforth to let the doctors alone. This 
all might do very well, if she alone was the suf- 
ferer. But I, being a party quite as much 
interested as she is, have resolved that no efforts 
shall remain untried to enable her to regain her 
health, and that I may have restored to me the 
society and companionship of a wife to whom I 
am most fondly attached. I cannot see her thus, 
day by day, sinking into a premature grave, 
whilst there remains the least earthly possibility 
of rescuing her from her present perilous condi- 
tion. I have, therefore, determined to give to 
you, myself, such facts concerning her case as I 
am conversant with; and as I have been for 
many years past, to a great extent, her principal 
nurse, I am not certain but that I can give you 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 95 

all the description necessary to enable you to 
form a pretty just opinion of whom you are to 
treat, and the troubles you are expected to 
eradicate. Soon after the birth of our child my 
wife's health commenced gradually to give way, 
and she filled, with difficulty, the offices of a 
mother, against my remonstrances ; she declined 
to resign her child to other hands during its in- 
fancy, and, although no immediate consequences 
were apparent, yet it was evident that her phy- 
sical powers were not equal to the burden she 
assumed. 

Whatever may have been the causes, thence- 
forward there seemed to be a general breaking 
up and falling to pieces of her entire system. 
Disorders of the womb, breasts, and a general 
weakness of all the genital organs indicated but 
too surely an enfeebled and relaxed condition 
of the system, calling for the immediate applica- 
tion of remedial measures of some sort. The 
physician whom I called did not seem to under- 
stand the case, or, if he did, he miserably failed 
in his selection of remedies ; for, instead of 
getting better, her maladies assumed a more 
dangerous and complicated form. She ceased 



96 dr. morrill's 

to become a mother, and seemed to be beset by 
all those disorders which call so loudly for our 
sympathy and aid. Labor and exercise of any 
kind become too irksome to be borne, whilst 
headaches, indigestion, pains in the abdomen, 
great susceptibility to atmospheric changes, ex- 
treme irregularity in all the natural functions, 
bleedings, and other discharges, combined to 
depress her spirits and undermine her strength, 
until she is now but a wreck of her former self. 
With this wearing away of the physical forces, 
there is also a decay of the mental faculties still 
more distressing to witness. She has fever to a 
considerable degree, yet the absence of the 
hectic flush of the cheek, or cough, or other 
usual signs of consumption, leads me to indulge 
the belief that her disease is not consumption in 
any of its forms. 

Physicians have repeatedly intimated con- 
sumption, spinal disease, or some ovarian com- 
plaint, and have, in turn, treated her for all 
these; and yet, the same emaciation, loss of 
appetite, discharges of blood and serum, disin- 
clination to effort of any kind, and repugnance 
to all society, continues as at first. Were I not 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 97 

afraid to entertain the thought, or pronounce the 
word, I should say that imbecility was the proper 
term to employ as descriptive of the condition 
to which she appears to be now fast tending. 
She makes less complaint than formerly, and 
manifests less solicitude for her restoration to 
health ; and I fear there are grounds for this in 
the almost passive state to which she is reduced. 
I wish it were so that I could induce her to un- 
dergo the journey necessary to see you, but 
that is entirely out of the question. Prom what 
I have written, can you form any just idea of 
her disease, and would you venture to take her 
case in hand? Could you do this, doctor, I 
should consider myself fortunate in having se- 
cured your services in her behalf. Enclosed 
please find a fee, which I trust will be satisfac- 
tory. 

Your early reply will be awaited for with deep 
anxiety, and gratefully appreciated by 

Most respectfully, your ob't serv't, 



If the reader has perused this book with any 
degree of attention, and failed to recognize in 



98 br. morrill's 

the above description, by her husband, of Mrs. 
M.'s case, a clear and decided case of self- abuse, 
then I cannot give him credit for ordinary pen- 
etration and acuteness. 

I introduce this letter, and the case it describes, 
in order to show to the reader a peculiar char- 
acteristic of this propensity, not alone confined 
to females, but shared alike by both sexes. 
Here was a lady who had lived under the same 
roof, shared the same bed, and otherwise co- 
habited with an affectionate, confiding, and 
devoted husband for thirteen years ; and yet, all 
this time, had been able to elude his watchful- 
ness to that extent as to completely disarm sus- 
picion itself; whilst he, hapless husband that he 
was, in the supposition that his wife was the 
victim of some deep-seated and occult disorder, 
far beyond the reach of ordinary skill, and, as 
it has been shown, not even thought of by the 
many doctors who had attended her, was about 
to surrender her to the grave, as past the possi- 
bility of cure, never dreamed that his wife was 
simply a masturbationist, and as such, as fit a 
subject for medical treatment as though she was 
simply affected by catarrh, or any other anala- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 99 

gous disease. 'Tis true that she had inflicted 
serious and almost fatal injury upon herself; 
but she was not yet past hope of restoration. 
The striking feature of the case is the cunning, 
secresy, and deception resorted to by the sub- 
jects of this vice. Strange as may appear, the 
habit seems to sharpen all the faculties of con- 
cealment and duplicity, whilst it deadens and 
paralyzes every moral sentiment, and leads its 
votaries to deceive and to shun their best friends 
and most intimate associates. Even the pros- 
pects of relief are disregarded, and the kindest 
purposes of the physician defeated by a conceal- 
ment and evasion rarely resorted to under any 
other circumstances. With this patient neither 
stratagem nor circumlocution would be availa- 
ble. My only course was to attack her with 
plainness of speech and directness of inquiry. 
With her husband's permission I wrote to her, 
stating, not my suspicions merely, but charging 
her directly with being addicted to solitary vices, 
and attributing all her maladies and sufferings 
to them alone. Whether she ever showed that 
letter to her husband, is more than I can say. 
But a short time afterwards I received a letter 



100 dr. morrill's 

directly from herself, begging me to prescribe 
for her, as she was " satisfied that I understood 
her case, and would do for her better than any 
one else." 

Of course I immediately acceded to her re- 
quest, and, carefully protecting myself against 
any surprises or duplicity on her part, I sub- 
jected her to a rigid and thorough course of 
treatment, both medicinal and hygienic, until, 
both from her own and her husband's state- 
ments, she has completely regained her former 
good health. Subsequently, on becoming per- 
sonally acquainted with her, she informed me 
that, up to that moment, her husband had re- 
mained in entire ignorance of the true cause 
and nature of her complaints ; and she thanked 
me over and over again, not only for the decided 
steps I had taken, but for the discreet, cautious, 
as well as successful manner in which I had 
treated her, and relieved her of all her troubles. 

I might continue, with the materials in my 
possession, to illustrate by letters and testimo- 
nials without number, the great success which 
has ever attended that system of treatment 
which I have adopted in those cases usually 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 101 

denominated " delicate," and which forms so 
large a share of those which afflict mankind. 
Notwithstanding the country, and our large 
cities especially, is literally crowded "by those 
who make large pretensions to extraordinary 
skill, and style themselves " doctors," whose 
only claim to that distinction is that they are 
ahle to keep up a standing advertisement in 
some of our newspapers, but whose real attain- 
ments in medical science can be measured by 
an 0. I have felt that in the open, liberal, and 
faithful exercise of a specialty made honorable 
by such names as Abercrombie, Hunter, Bell, 
Ricord, Acton, and many others whose learned 
investigations and writings upon this subject 
have done so much to benefit mankind, I need 
not fear, nor shrink from being placed on any 
degree in the scale of " professional respecta- 
bility," to which my professional brethren may 
choose to assign me. My tribunal is the public 
at large, and by its judgment I am content to 
abide. It has been truly said that "nothing 
succeeds so well as success." Judged by that 
criterion, I do not hesitate to compare myself 
with any of my compeers, certain as I am that, 
in point of numbers cured, I excel them all. 



102 dr. morrill's 

In conclusion, let me say that, although I do 
not consider this book by any means as an ad- 
vertising medium, but solely what it claims to 
be, — A Medical Adviser, and Guide to 
Health, — yet I believe my readers will concur 
with me in the strict propriety of calling atten- 
tion to the great facilities I possess for the care 
and treatment of the sick at my extensive 
establishment No. 3 Bulfinch Street, Boston, 
Mass. Secluded from general observation, 
in one of the pleasantest streets in the city, 
with easy access to all public conveyances, and 
in the immediate neighborhood of the chief ob- 
jects of public interest, the Mall, the Common, 
the Public Oar den, the Horticultural Rooms, 
the Museum, the Reservoir, and the State 
House, I claim for it advantages of location 
possessed by no other private establishment in 
the city. Good nursing, careful and faithful 
attendance, and medical treatment under my 
own immediate supervision, with all remedies 
directly from my own laboratory, will ensure to 
patients all that science, art, and skill can of- 
fer for their comfort and relief. I prefer to con- 
sult oracally with my patients, if possible. But 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 103 

if that be impossible, or inconvenient, letters, 
plainly and distinctly written, stating the nature 
of the disease, the age and occupation of the 
patient, addressed to me, containing two dol- 
lars, consultation fee, will be promptly attend- 
ed to. In order to avoid any mistakes and delay, 
please direct letters as follows : — 

F. MORRILL, M. D., 

No. 3-Bulfinch Street, Boston, Mass. 



CHAPTER V. 



IN addition to the directions already given for 
the treatment of the more common diseases 
for which the aid of a physician is required and 
most usually sought after, I have thought it best 
to subjoin here a few of the most valuable and 
reliable prescriptions, to which the sufferer may 
safely resort in case of need. These prescrip- 
tions are the result of a large experience, and 
may be safely depended upon. With one or 
two exceptions, they are such as can be put up 
in any country apothecary's store, and may be 



104: dr. momull's 

used, as directed, with perfect safety. All these 
diseases have so many modifications, and pa- 
tients differ so much in susceptibility to conta- 
gion and inflammation, as well as in the resis- 
tant powers of nature, that no two cases can be 
properly treated alike. What might cure one 
person in forty-eight hours of a slight attack, 
might be as inert and powerless with another as 
so much water. It is the physician alone, who 
by his powers of discrimination and judgment, 
derived from a long familiarity with the various 
shades of these complaints, can with certainty 
be relied upon. I have selected the following 
prescriptions from among those I most fre- 
quently use in my own practice, and can safely 
recommend them : 

A good wash for a simple Chancre : 

R. Acid Tanici, 

Zinc Sulph., each 2 grs. 
Soft Water, 2 drs. 

Saturate a bit of lint larger than the sore, so 
as to keep it moist, and at the same time cover 
the sore, to protect the opposite healthy surface. 

Eicord's Anti- Syphilitic Pill is one of the best 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 105 

remedies I know of, on the first appearance of a 
Chancre, and is almost a perfect antidote to con- 
stitutional infection : 

R. Iodide of Mercury, 

Extract of Lettuce, half a drachm each, 
u Hemlock, one drachm. 

Mix, and make thirty pills. 

Dose. One at bed time, and, in urgent cases, 
even three to six may be given daily, in which 
case they should be divided up in doses morn- 
ing, noon, and night. 

Where injections of Nitrate of Silver, in case 
of gonorrhoea may be objectionable, from any 
cause whatever, the Chlorate of Potash may be 
used with every assurance of success and safety. 
It is not so prompt in its effects as the Mtrate 
of Silver, and requires some degree of perse- 
verance in its use to perfect a cure : 

R. Chlorate of Potash, one drachm, 
Water, eight ounces. 

Mix. In the early stages use an injection, every 
hour, for twelve hours ; then four, and finally 
three times a day. All remedies for gonorrhoea 
should be continued, in reduced doses, for a 
week, at least, after the discharge ceases. 



106 dr. morrill's 

In obstinate cases of gonorrhoea, and leucorr- 
hosa in females, the following mixture of astrin- 
gent of bark of Bazil is often found highly- 
effective : 

K. Decoct, cort. adstring. Brasil, 7 fluid ounces, 
Copaib, cum vitelli ovi qs. subact, 
Tinct. ferri pomati aa, seven drachms, 
Syrup balsam, one fluid ounce. 
Dose. A spoonful every two hours. 
N. B. The above should only be put up by a 
careful apothecary. 

In the chronic stages of gonorrhoea and gleet, 
Creasote is often found to be a very useful rem- 
edy, taken in doses of two drops, with loaf-sugar 
beaten into syrup with water, three or four times 
a day. Ordinary cases of leucorrhoea, in fe- 
males, may generally be cured in three or four 
days by weak injections of Creasote, two drops 
to the ounce of water, repeated twice, or thrice 
daily, Copaiba should never be used at the 
same time with Creasote. 

I consider it quite unnecessary to multiply 
prescriptions for the diseases above alluded to, 
as they would only serve to embarrass and per- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 107 

plex the sufferer. Those now given are only 
designed for his use, until he can have recourse 
to some honest and skilful physician. Let him 
avoid all patent and advertised remedies, and 
quack humbugs, and he cannot fail to be better 
off, and far safer, than in the hands of the 
charlatan knave who is solely after his money. 
In cases of syphilitic attacks, such as the ap- 
pearance of a chancre, a simple water dressing 
with lint, is all that is necessary until a physi- 
cian can be consulted. In any case, a resort to 
mercurial or potassiam, or any of the popular 
remedies, should be avoided until prescribed by 
him. Should the chancre have made much pro- 
gress, sprinkling it with pure dry calomel is 
often found very beneficial. In a large ma- 
jority of cases, the alterative effects of mercury 
can be better attained by using the common 
blue ointment, (ungueutum) rubbing it upon the 
inside of the thighs. Should the palate, or roof 
of the mouth be attacked, the common black 
wash, procured at any druggist's, may be care- 
fully applied with a camePs hair pencil ; or, a 
small bit of the nitrate of silver, carefully inser- 
ted in a quill, may be drawn over and around 



108 



the edges of the sore. By the aid of a small 
mirror, the patient may do this for himself, as 
effectually as the best surgeon in the world. 

The reader will, I trust, constantly bear in 
mind that these suggestions in regard to his use of 
medical agencies, are only designed to aid him 
when he cannot at once have the benefit of the 
advice and direction of a good doctor. Persons 
residing in villages and country towns, where 
there are but one or two physicians, at most, 
are very often quite reluctant to consult with 
them, or to expose to them their condition, and 
consequently prefer to run the risk of doctoring 
themselves for awhile, until they can repair to 
the city. There is prudence in this course for 
more reasons than simply the dislike to make 
the family, or neighborhood doctor, a confident 
in your troubles. The country doctor seldom 
knows anything about this class of diseases. 
When a student, he may have read something 
about them, and a general knowledge of them, 
as derived from the books, may have been at- 
tained as a part of his medical education ; but 
who is there that does not know very well that 
the treatment of all these diseases are now entire- 






MEDICAL ADVISER. 109 

ly different from what it was even ten years ago, 
and that the writings of even such standard au- 
thors as Thomas, the Bells, Copeland, and a 
host of others whom I might name, are alto- 
gether out of date, and entirely unreliable upon 
these subjects. I do not mean to intimate that 
there are not as good doctors in the country 
towns as in the city; there are many country 
doctors who would justly be regarded as orna- 
ments to their profession anywhere. But the 
country practitioner is not called up to exercise 
his skill in private diseases, to that extent as to 
prompt him to become an expert in their treat- 
ment ; a case or two in a year, and perhaps not 
even that, is generally the extent of his experi- 
ence, and even that he touches reluctantly. If 
he cures, well. If he fails, it is just as well to 
him ; he knows that his patient will keep still 
about it in either case. I knew a case some 
years ago, where a young gentleman residing in 
a country town, on his first visit to the city, was 
so unfortunate as to contract for the first time, 
a simple gonorrhoea. It did not develope itself 
fully until his return home, when suspecting the 
cause of his trouble, he applied to his friend the 



110 DR. 

village doctor for relief. That gentleman was 
considered one of the very best of physicians 
and surgeons in the whole region around. His 
large practice, and uniform success, made him 
prominent as one of the safest and most reliable 
medical counsellors, in all that section of coun- 
try. Of course he readily undertook my young 
friends case, and for months, and months, he 
dosed, drugged, and tormented him, with all 
the various compounds, and combinations of 
copaiba, cubebs, nitre, various emulsions, &c, 
&c, until the poor fellow was literally worn 
down to skin and bone. He has often since 
shown me the old doctor's account and bill of 
items for that seige, as he termed it, and there, 
runing through a period of over six months, is 
put down, day and date, and item by item, a 
list of medicines, in all, with services, amount- 
ing to over two hundred dollars, for the treat- 
ment, (not cure mind you) of a simple case 
that I could have easily cured in a weeks time, 
at a tenth part of the expense. Now-a-days 
the treatment of urino genital diseases, and 
all disorders of the generative organs, and their 
functions, has settled down into a science as ex- 



MEDICAL ADVISER. Ill 

act as that of any other; and in conformity 
with a custom long established in European 
capitals, the treatment of this class of diseases 
is confined to a few, who are designated as 
specialists, who have perfected themselves in 
this particular branch of medical and surgical 
science, by great aptitude for it, extensive 
study and investigation, and the practical expe- 
rience afforded by a varied and extensive prac- 
tice. With them it is emphatically true that, 
''practice makes perfect," and as success is 
about the best criterion of merit, the afflicted 
have only to inquire who of them it is, that is 
reputed to have the most extensive practice. 
That fact ascertained, there need be no further 
difficulty in making the selection of your medi- 
cal adviser. 



112 dr. morrill's 



CHAPTER VI. 

SPERMATORRHEA, SEMINAL WEAKNESS AND NOC- 
TURNAL EMISSIONS. 

I CANNOT conclude this treatise without a 
more particular allusion to a class of dis- 
eases affecting the pro creative organs, which 
are alarmingly prevalent, and gradually under- 
mining the very foundations of our best man- 
hood and womanhood in their most interesting 
and important relations to society and domestic 
life. Whether it is that, owing to a more gen- 
eral dissemination of knowledge in this respect, 
through an outspoken candor on the part of the 
medical profession, or that the habits and ten- 
dencies of society, as now constituted, tending 
to that result, it is a most melancholy truth, 
that at the present time, the disorders and infir- 
mities coming under those named at the head of 
this chapter are alarmingly prevalent, and appli- 
cations fcr their treatment occupy no inconsid- 
erable share of the time and attention of the 
well-known specialist. In the whole range of 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 113 

his duties as a medical adviser, does he find any 
physical derangements, the successful treatment 
of which are so difficult, and generally speaking, 
unsatisfactory to himself and patient, as these. 
This is not so much in consequence of any 
difficulty or doubt attending the proper mode of 
treatment to be observed, as in the difficulty of 
securing the patient's strict observance of the 
rules prescribed for his cure. 

Tha common and vulgar notion which prevails, 
especially among the uneducated, that wonder- 
ful virtues are connected with excessive drug- 
ging and dosing, that there is some magic power 
contained in " a bottle of medicine," they can- 
not relinquish the idea that health and constant 
pill eating are inseparable. They imagine and 
expect that the consequences of a life of indis- 
cretion, excess, and, it may be bestiality, or 
what is next thing to it, is to be overcome and 
done away with in a few days or weeks at 
farthest, by a twenty or thirty dollar bottle of 
some compound which some cunning M. D. has 
advertised, under the high-sounding title of 
Panacea, Invigorator, Regenerator, Balsam of 
Life, or something of the kind, the more far- 



114 DR. 

fetched and nonsensical the better. It is hard 
to convince such people that the stamina of a 
constitution, sapped and undermined by years 
of violence perpetrated on themselves, is to be 
restored by the simple administration of a few- 
tonics, and that a week or two of self-denial 
will be all that is necessary to set them all right 
again. That this idea is nattered and taken ad- 
vantage of by most of the unprincipled quacks 
who advocate their " specific" cures and won- 
derful remedies, is notoriously true, and whilst 
at the present day a few unsophisticated coun- 
trymen, and simple-minded youth may be taken 
by such " chaff," no reputable physician, whose 
conscienscious regard to what he owes to his 
profession, and to the welfare of his patient, 
will for a moment countenance such downright 
imposition upon the credulous and unsuspect- 
ing. In the course of my long experience of 
over thirty- three years, almost daily dealing 
with this class of patients, and deriving no in - 
considerable portion of my professional income 
from their treatment, I have ever found candor, 
truth and straight-forward dealing the most 
successful and abiding in their results. I frankly 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 115 

state to my patient the nature of his difficulties, 
how they have been produced, the disorganizing 
process which has long been going on, and the 
need of moral and hygienic, as well as medical 
treatment to his restoration. I convince him by 
a reference to himself and his own experience, 
that I understand his case as well as though I 
had watched his every movement from his boy- 
hood up, and instead of sending him away a 
hopeless, desponding wretch, in his estimation 
only fitted for the mad-house, or a suicide's 
grave, I open to him new hopes, a new life, and 
convince him that, there is yet in him the stuff 
of which men, active, useful, noble men. are 
made. I point out to him a method of relief 
and cure, so certain, efficacious, and reliable, 
that his common sense at once seconds all I say 
to him. I at once strip aside the veil which has 
been placed before his eyes by the cunning and 
avaricious knaves who may have hitherto preyed 
upon his weakness and his fears, and show him 
how, with a few simple remedies, and a fair per- 
severance in a course of treatment by no means 
difficult to be followed, a knowledge of which is 
of far greater value in gold than all the potions 



116 DR. 

in the world ; he can be re-invigorated, re-juve- 
nated, and restored without fear of relapse, or 
doing violenee to any law of his being. 

That masturbation is, in ninety-nine cases out 
of a hundred, the direct cause of Spermatorrhea 
is generally admitted ; but all seminal weakness 
is not Spermatorrhea ; and although that com- 
plaint is, as I have before stated, alarmingly 
prevalent, and on the increase, yet it is only the 
skilful diagnostician that can properly discrimi- 
nate between it and many other complaints, 
producing almost similar effects, such as noc- 
turnal emissions, etc., that it would be extremely 
improper, and often very unsafe for the patient 
to attempt, unadvisedly, to treat himself. Gen- 
eral rules may, however, with great propriety 
be given, by the observance of which very sen- 
sible relief may be obtained. In a conversation 
held by myself many years ago, with the vener- 
able Dr. Samuel Thompson, the father of the 
Botanical school of medicine in this country, 
speaking of some particular inflammatory dis- 
ease then under consideration, the old doctor, 
in reply to an inquiry as to the best mode of 
treatment, threw out in his terse, common sense 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 117 

way, this hint : " take off the wood and the fire 
will go out," an aphorism which contains a world 
of wisdom, and in no sense more applicable than 
to the subject under consideration. No med- 
ication, however skilfully devised, no moral, or 
hygienic treatment, however perseveringly fol- 
lowed, can avail anything, so long as the miser- 
able practice which has given rise to the disease' 
is indulged in. To effect its entire and instant 
abandonment should be the first care of the 
medical adviser. He should be plain and out- 
spoken in his expression of the evils of the prac- 
tice, and, assuming the privilege which is justly 
considered as the duty of every upright physi- 
cian, point out to the transgressor that his sin 
is one against the laws of God, as well as against 
his own well-being, and that for strength to aid 
him in his efforts for recovery, he should look 
higher than to mere professional skill for assis- 
tance and support. " Lead us not into tempta- 
tion, but deliver us from all evil," should be his 
constant prayer. In this frame of mind, and 
taught that masturbation is " a cowardly, selfish 
and debasing habit," he may with confidence rely 
upon the efforts of the surgeon to remedy the 



118 dr. morrill's 

mischiefs which have been done by previous 
excesses. If he understands his business, these 
remedies will not be confined to any one set of 
prescriptions, but adapted to the age, constitu- 
tion, habits, peculiarities, and temperament of 
the patient. Whilst in some cases, the simple 
abstinence from late suppers, tea, coffee and 
tobacco, the use of straw mattresses to lie upon 
instead of feather beds, the use of the shower- 
bath every morning, regular exercise short of 
fatigue, such as boating, riding, boxing, or walk- 
ing, will accomplish wonders, and preclude the 
necessity of a resort to more active measures, 
the use of tonics, very nutricious food, and sea- 
air, will be indicated as necessary to re-invigo- 
rate the system at a later stage of the complaint ; 
and when the victim has been a sufferer for 
years, nothing short of a complete surrender of 
himself into the hands of his medical adviser, 
can save him from the consequences of his 
follies. 

My reader will have seen, if he possesses a 
particle of common sense, how inadequate any 
prescriptions would be, laid indiscriminately 
before him, to assist him in combatting the " foul 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 119 

fiend " with which he has to deal. Aside from 
masturbation, his difficulty may have been en- 
gendered and stimulated by other causes, which 
the practiced eye and matured experience of the 
specialist, in this department of medical science, 
can only detect. Organic lesions, a morbid 
sensitiveness of the parts, arising from urethral 
diseases, such as strictures, granular or fungoid 
vegetations, or even animalcula, which can only 
be detected by microscopic examination, may 
indicate both surgical, as well as medical appli- 
cations to effect a cure. Such being the case, 
applicants for relief should well remember the 
importance of personal consultation, in order to 
obtain the full benefit of the surgeon's skill, and 
how much it is they ask of him, when, in a care- 
lessly composed letter, omitting almost every 
detail, they ask of him ' ' how much he will 
charge them to cure," and " how long it will 
take." And here I am led to observe, how diffi- 
cult it is to contend against the prevalent vulgar 
idea, that the greater the quantity of medicine 
administered, the more likely of quick relief. 
The inordinate passion for drugging is charac- 
teristic of anything but a correct idea of the 



120 dr. morrill's 

proper uses of medicine, and made to subserve 
the purposes of the most venal and unprincipled 
of those whose only aim is money, in the exer- 
cise of a profession which they disgrace. How 
many bottles of colored water, or powders of 
magnesia are directed to be taken " ut fecisse 
aliquid videamur," that something may be done 
which shall be seen, in order to satisfy this 
appetite for drugs, which seems to possess so 
many. People hardly reflect that in the critical 
and careful investigation of a disease, and form- 
ing a proper estimate of its causes, and the 
proper means of arresting its further progress ; 
the rallying powers of nature are weighed with 
almost countless circumstances, go to make up 
the physician's prescription, and that he who 
succeeds with the least resort to exterior aid, 
is incomparably more skilful than him, who, 
hap-hazard, begins to stuff his patient with the 
nauseating and vile compounds which, for the 
most part, compose our materia medica. In- 
fluenced by these views, I have latterly directed 
my researches towards a reduction to the least 
available quantity of such drugs, etc., as I find 
it necessary to administer, and those put up in 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 121 

that form in which their active qualities are con- 
centrated to the smallest possible space, and I 
have hopes, that ere long I shall be enabled to 
send through the mails, in the smallest sized 
pill-box, medicines more efficacious, and less 
repulsive than in the form hitherto administered ; 
which shall be certain and reliable in all those 
cases in which my prescriptions are sought for. 
I have but a word or two more to add. My 
education, researches and investigations into 
these subjects have cost me much valuable time 
and money. In order to satisfy the large de- 
mands of thought and reflection called for by 
my extensive correspondence, I must necessarily 
confide to assistants some portion of the manual 
labor incident to my business. All this costs 
money. Therefore correspondents and others 
should remember that, as my time is valuable, 
it is but just that those who ask me to appro- 
priate it to their benefit, should render me a fair 
remuneration for doing so. Letters therefore 
should always contain a liberal consultation fee, 
in order to insure prompt and full answers. 



122 DR. 

N. B. I deem it proper to warn the reader, 
and such as may desire to call upon me, at my 
office and place of business, that The Peoples' 
Medical Institute is at No. 3 Bulfinch 
Street, a few doors out of Bowdoin Square, 
and directly opposite the east front of the Revere 
House. The Institute will be recognized at 
once by its bow front, and the bronze dogs on 
each side of the front entrance. I am thus par- 
ticular in describing the building, as patients 
from the country desiring to call at the Institute 
having come to the city for that very purpose, 
have frequently been inveighled into other es- 
tablishments of doubtful reputation either for 
skill or honesty, and have been treated there 
under the impression and assurance that they 
were receiving the attention of Dr. Morrill ! ! 

BE CAREFUL THEN TO REMEMBER 
that Dr. Morrill's place is at No. 3 Buxfinch 
Street, and don't be deceived by any represen- 
tations whatever, but, as the late Davy Crockett 
would say, " Be sure you are right and then go 
ahead." 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 123 

CONCLUSION. 
PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL. 

IN taking charge of The Peoples' Medical 
Institute, Doctor Morrill would avtiil 
himself of the opportunity afforded by the pub- 
lication of this new and revised edition of The 
Medical Adviser, to express his sincere grati- 
tude and thanks to a large circle of personal 
friends and patrons, as also to a liberal and dis- 
cerning public, for the encouragement, confi- 
dence, and extensive patronage hitherto bestowed 
upon him, and reaching now nearly a period of 
thirty-three years, during which time he has 
resided and practised his profession in this city. 
Coming here almost the third of a century ago, 
an entire stranger, young in years, with but the 
slight experience of a few months of country 
practice, and profoundly ignorant of the wiles, 
competitions and struggles of a city life, he has, 
through the encouragement which an earnest 
endeavor to attain success has inspired, been 
fortunate in securing the patronage of thousands 



124: 



of intelligent men and women, whose confidence 
and good opinion could only be attained by 
some degree of merit ; and has been enabled to 
acquire a permanence, position, and professional 
standing of which he may well be proud, and 
which should satisfy any reasonable ambition. 
In the course of this long period of time he has 
witnessed the debut, progress, and alas, also the 
decline and obscuration of an almost countless 
multitude of Doctors, Specialists, and " Pro- 
fessors " of the healing art, who have swarmed 
around him, and sought to tide themselves over 
the rough channels of a metropolitan struggle 
for prominence and success, and watching them 
from the prologue to the epilogue of their brief 
play, he has often been led to thank God that, 
He had endowed him with a persistency, forti- 
tude and ability which has enabled him to sur- 
mount difficulties and opposition which had 
crippled and disheartened so many. To day, as 
in the past, there are those who would captivate 
the public by grand pretensions of great attain- 
ments, lofty titles, and conferred dignities ; who 
claim to have exercised their skill in hospitals, 
and upon the tented field, and as authors 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 125 

excited wonderment and admiration at home 
and abroad; thus throwing out their baits to 
catch the credulous and allure the unwary. 
But I have learned to estimate such persons at 
pretty near their true value ; and that, the non- 
combative system, if strictly adhered to, would, 
in a short time, rid me of all such opposition. 
If not outspoken, my course has resolved itself 
into that inspired by Uncle Toby's treatment of 
the fly which buzzed about his ears, " Go poor 
insect, I will not kill thee ; the world has room 
enough for thee and me." In this frame of 
mind I have resisted the many temptations to a 
retirement from the arduous duties of a some- 
what exacting profession, to the quiet enjoy- 
ment of the fruits of my long and eminently suc- 
cessful career as a medical practitioner. The 
constantly growing necessity in this city for 
some institution which would operate as a bar- 
rier to the daily frauds, deceptions, impositions, 
and extortions practised upon hundreds of un- 
sophisticated and artless victims of city tempta- 
tions having led to the establishment of The 
Peoples' Medical Institute, I have been in- 
duced to embark in the enterprize, and give to 



126 dr. morrill's 

it my hearty sympathy and co-operation. Placed 
at the head of it by the very flattering partiality 
of its projectors and founders, I find myself 
almost unexpectedly in a position where my 
large experience, and habits of careful study 
and investigation, will find ample scope for ex- 
ercise as well as display. 

In the prime of life, and in the enjoyment of 
unimpaired vigor of both body and mind, I enter 
upon the work assigned me, with all the eager- 
ness and ardor of confident ability to discharge 
every duty incumbent upon me with success and 
credit to myself, and to the entire satisfaction of 
my friends and patrons, amongst whom I am hap- 
py to say that those of the female sex have con- 
stituted a very large and interesting proportion. 
Very early in my practice the circumstance of 
being located in a section of country where I 
had but few professional rivals, and constantly 
called upon to attend to all the various cases 
always arising in a country neighborhood, I 
felt an ambition to excel, particularly in cases 
where the ladies were to become the objects of 
my solicitude and care. 

In all female complaints arising from any 



MEDICAL ADVISER. 127 

obstruction to the free operations of nature's 
laws, my remedies are infallible; whilst in 
cases where nature must be restrained, for 
reasons of health, propriety, or expediency 
even, if consulted in season, my remedies are 
equally efficacious and certain. In a book de- 
signed as this is for general circulation, topics 
of this character can only be alluded to super- 
ficially and in suppressed tones > lest the delicate 
sensibilities of some, whose good opinion I 
would conciliate, might be too rudely jarred. 
Hence I can only say to them, as to all others, 
that you will at all times find me a patient 
listener to your complaints and troubles, and 
may safely rely Upon my care, discretion, and 
skill in ministering to your necessities, even if 
arising through a faulty training, misplaced 
confidence or unguarded intercourse, or any 
other cause which may require the aid of medi- 
cal advice and assistance. 



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